


till human voices wake us

by kangeiko



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, M/M, Magic, Mental Health Issues, Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Reconciliation, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, background James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Sam Wilson - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-26 11:45:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 106,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13235034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: Tony is called out on a rescue mission. Things deteriorate from there.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a WIP, and is therefore subject to minor edits and changes.
> 
> NB: This fic is told from Tony's POV, and as such, it is coloured by his opinions and perceptions. These will change during the fic. I don't intend for this fic to be 'anti' any of the characters, and this will be a reconciliation/fix-it fic. If that's not your cup of tea, please have a look through the 'Not a Fix-It' tag instead.

_It was morning; a Sunday, maybe. JARVIS had yet to wake him, so he probably didn't have any meetings he was late for, and his chest didn't hurt for the first time in a very long while. His head did feel pretty sore, but it was the sort of ‘sore’ which just reminded you what a great night you’d had the night before. As long as he stayed here, in this space, everything was okay. Even the soreness in his head felt muffled, as if it was happening from far away. Or -_

_Wait._

_"This is a dream,” Tony murmured, blinking in the morning light, warm and heavy with sleep. His mouth felt - odd. Numb.  His body still had the pleasant lassitude of sleep, his limbs only slowly starting to come back to awareness. His fingers twitched as he woke up a little more, turning his head towards the daylight streaming in from the large windows. He tried to stretch, and found that his_ _right arm was trapped under a heavy, warm body. Something - someone - was insistently pressed against his bladder, a steady pressured that was just the wrong side of pleasurable._

 _There were fingers carding through his hair, large and capable and familiar._ _“I'm still asleep.”_

_The chest under his shifted slightly as his bed partner stirred. “It’s early,” Steve said sleepily, and pressed his lips against Tony’s temple. “Go back to sleep.”_

_“Mmmm.” That_ did _sound appealing. The fingers in his hair resumed their slow caress, and Tony felt his eyelids start to close again, his body slipping easily back into its relaxed state. He was so_   _comfortable, he could probably drop off in a couple of minutes_. _But - “didn't you try to wake me?”  He forced his eyes open. He was sure that somebody -_

_“No, sweetheart,” Steve said into Tony’s hair, his words sleep-slurred. “Let's stay here forever. Don't want to wake up.”_

_“...me neither.” If Steve wasn't insisting they get up, surely a lie-in would be okay. Nobody was looking for him; JARVIS would have woken him otherwise. No, he could stay here. He could stay like this forever. “Let's just stay in bed, then.” As long as JARVIS didn't -_

_Wait, that was wrong. What was wrong with that thought? His fuzzy brain couldn't figure it out._

_“Sure thing,” Steve said drowsily. He stretched, his joints popping, and resettled his arms around Tony._

_His lips pressed against the shell of Tony’s ear, and despite himself, Tony shivered, his train of thought derailed. Steve was so deliciously heavy around him, his skin warm and smooth under Tony's fingers. “Or we could…”_

_Steve smiled, his eyes closed. He tucked his face against Tony's neck._ “Boss? You have a call,” _he said, and yawned._

_“...what?”_

“Boss,” _Steve said, more insistently,  twisting on the sheets and smiling up at Tony. His voice was a bit higher-pitched than was normal._ “Boss.”

“Boss.”

"Boss, you have an urgent call, you need to wake up."

“Enough, FRIDAY; I'm up, Jesus fucking Christ.” Tony groaned, a hand over his eyes. His head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. Christ, he could do with a drink.

He took the hand away and blinked in the soft glow of the artificial light. The curtains weren't open; it must still be dark outside. What time was it? "FRIDAY, it's the middle of the night; who the hell is calling me?" FRIDAY wouldn't put anyone through unless they rated as important enough for her to skip the automated voicemail... or unless they had managed to convince her that what they had to say couldn't wait. 

There was an almost imperceptible pause before FRIDAY answered. “His majesty, King T’Challa, is on the line for you, boss. He apologises for the late hour. He says it's urgent.”

Tony finally managed to focus his eyes on his watch. _04:07_ blinked at him. Oh, fuck his life. He’d finally managed to drop off to sleep a grand total of two hours ago. And it had been a good dream, too; someone had been hugging him, and he’d been just about to -

Fuck. “Gimme a minute.”

He staggered out of bed, pulling on a pair of black slacks and a grey cashmere sweater before heading into the bathroom. The illuminated mirror greeted him with a bruised-looking reflection that was perhaps not unexpected, given that he'd had a grand total of seven hours' sleep in two days.  He grimaced and ran the cold tap until it was icy, splashing some water on his face. He looked like a raccoon, for fuck's sake. Did he have time to tidy himself up a little, try to cover up some of the bags under his eyes? Probably not, if T'Challa was calling him urgently. He dragged a comb through his hair and called it quits. At least he looked reasonably alert.

Oh, well. It _was_ 4am. Even royalty couldn’t expect you to be perfectly coiffed in the middle of the night with 30 seconds’ notice. It would do. 

He planted himself in front of his tablet and managed an approximation of his usual ‘investors’ stance - shoulders back, limbs loose, big smile - before tapping the ‘accept call’ button. ("Always take important calls on your feet, Tony," Obie had used to say, back when Tony had been learning the ropes. "It makes you more alert. It also prompts people not to waste your time."  _Good old Obie_ , Tony had thought at the time. _Every action should accomplish at least two things, otherwise you're just being lazy and obvious. Subtlety is the key..._ )

“Your majesty,” Tony said evenly. “A pleasure as always. What can I do for you?”

The connection was perfect, as always. The worry lines on T’Challa’s face were crystal-clear. “My apologies for waking you, Dr Stark,” the king said. “I know that it is the middle of the night in New York.”

Tony’s smile didn’t waver. “For you, I’m always available.”

“Ah, you are kind.” T’Challa coughed, looking a little uncomfortable. “I hesitate to ask this, Dr Stark, but - is the connection secure on your end?”

That was - unusual. Tony paused for a moment. “Of course. Do you need additional security?”

“Please.”

Tony swiped through on his tablet and the familiar hum of the scrambler filled the penthouse. The lines were normally pretty damn secure, of course, but if T’Challa was calling about certain guests that Tony suspected were sleeping under his roof, then it couldn’t hurt to get all his toys up and running on the off chance that someone (Ross) had been able to crack his encryption. “All set. Shoot.”

“I need your help,” T’Challa said without any preamble. “Captain Rogers has been off the grid for twelve hours, and he missed his designated check-in four hours ago. We have been unable to get in contact, and I fear that he may need assistance.”

Tony felt the beginnings of a migraine prickling closer. This was not what he'd been expecting. Help with Barnes, maybe. A discussion about the Accords, possibly. Even - even! - a request for assistance in getting Barton in contact with his family. (He didn't know where they were, he  _didn't_. The Bartons had all disappeared within days of the Raft break-out, and Tony had no fucking idea where they were. He'd  _looked_. He'd spent a sizable portion of the sixteen days since the break-out looking, and he had no idea whether the lack news meant that Barton himself was with them, or Romanoff. Whether the lack of news was a good sign.)

He had a whole list of things that T'Challa could have been calling about, alright. But this was nowhere near the top. Had Rogers told T'Challa to contact him? Did he even know that this was what T'Challa was doing? What the hell was Rogers doing out of Wakanda anyway? "...what?" he managed finally, sounding more bewildered than he'd like.

“Will you be able to assist him?” T’Challa said, looking a little put-out to have to say it aloud rather than have Tony offer unprompted.

 _Jesus Christ_. His fingers went to his wrists, to where he could feel the metal of the suit bracelets. He'd put them on once he'd repaired the suit, and never quite got around to taking them off again. It was probably for the best, anyway; it couldn't hurt to have the suit accessible wherever he was. (It wasn't like he had someone in his bed he needed to be considerate of, anyway.)

“Why me?” _When he has the entire team to choose from,_ he thought, but did not say. Even if Barton had gone to ground, it wasn’t as though Rogers was running short on back-up. 

That much had been made abundantly clear to him.

“There is no one else,” T’Challa said. He looked away briefly, looking troubled. “Mr Barnes has elected to go back into cryogenic suspension. And Ms Maximoff would attract too much attention if she leaves Wakanda.” 

“Wilson, then,” Tony said unthinkingly. “Or Romanoff. Or - Barton, if he's still there. Lang, maybe. Plenty of choice.”

T’Challa held his gaze unblinkingly. “None of those individuals are in Wakanda. Nor do I have a way of reaching them.”

Wait. 

None - _none_ of them? Barton, maybe, but -

“Yeah,” he said, hearing the disbelief in his voice. “Sure.”

The king looked away for a moment. “Dr Stark, I do not mean to presume, but I feel that I should clear up some misapprehensions on your part with respect to your teammates.”

“ _Former_ teammates,” Tony snapped, feeling the familiar rush of rage. “Hard to be teammates with someone when -”  _When they don't want you_ , he thought, bitter. _Hard to be teammates when the team doesn't want to be a team._

“Your teammates,” T'Challa continued without pause, talking over Tony, “did not stay in Wakanda for longer than a few hours. They came here to safely deliver Ms Maximoff. And then they departed.”

“- when they - what?” Tony blinked. The last he’d heard - the last every scrap of available information had assured him - the Avengers had been broken out of the Raft, and had been safely ensconced in Birnin Zana.  He'd tracked them himself. “But I sent -” he snapped his mouth shut.

T’Challa smiled thinly. “Sent them to me? Yes, that much I had gathered. But there were some disagreements between the Captain and the others around the best way to approach things. To approach - reconciliation.”

 _Reconciliation,_ Tony thought faintly. _Sure._ Unthinkingly, he rubbed at his sternum, at the echo of remembered pain.

The king's knowing eyes tracked the movement. He seemed troubled by it, hesitating a little. “Some have returned to look after their families, and others to pursue a different approach. At any rate, I cannot reach them at this moment. Oh - there are ways to contact them, of course, dead drops and suchlike, but they will take time. And I am not certain that the Captain has that time to spare.” T’Challa paused, seeming to weigh his words carefully. “Dr Stark,” he said finally, “I have tried alternate methods of contacting Captain Rogers. But he missed his check-in point. He is not answering his communicator. And Ms Maximoff - she cannot find him.”

Something in Tony went cold at that. “You have her looking?” 

"She has attempted to reach out to the Captain, but she cannot find him. Either he is out of range, or something is blocking her." T'Challa took a deep breath. "The Captain - I believe he sent you a way to contact him should you have need of him. I regret that I must ask first, on his behalf. Will you help?"

 _Damn you, Rogers_. "Where is he?"

As if there was a choice.

 

*

 

"Boss, I strongly advise against this."

"Uh huh," Tony said absent-mindedly, gulping down a coffee and flicking through the briefing pack T'Challa had emailed through.  _Dammit, Rogers, you don't do things by half, do you?_   One false move, and he could trigger a major conflict. Did the US even have a position on the Ossetian question? "FRIDAY, prepare a briefing for me on South Ossetia for the trip over. Recent events, key players, things likely to explode. You know the drill." How the hell had Rogers even made it into Georgia undetected? 

He'd need to leave a note, make it clear that his trip was unauthorised and that no one in the US military (or the UN Accords Council) had any knowledge of his entry into Georgia, let alone the restricted South Ossetia region. If anyone spotted him...

Christ, the last thing the world needed was another flare-up in this region.

"FRIDAY, take a note, to be delivered in the event of my incursion being detected - I, Tony Stark, being of sound mind and - okay, you know what, that sounds like a will. Scrap that." He closed the briefing pack and tossed the tablet on the nearest chair, heading for the door. "I'll think of something on the way."

"Boss, I really think that you need to arrange for back-up-"

"Later, baby girl. Later." It was going to be a long flight, and he needed to read up on all the ins and outs of the most recent Caucasian conflicts before he committed anyone else to this. 

"Yes, boss." She didn't sound reassured. 

The lift swallowed him up. 

 

*

 

The flight was uneventful. Good weather, strong headwind... under any other circumstances, Tony would have enjoyed it. As it was, he could feel the strain the suit was under as he urged it to go just that little faster to Rogers's last known coordinates.  _Bastard is trying to kill me_ , he thought sourly.  _The phone wasn't enough, the letter wasn't enough, he's now trying to make sure that I never sleep_.

Sleep had not been an easy commodity to come by, recently. Not with everything that had happened.

He hadn't needed the hospital, in the end. He'd taken a few heavy hits, sure, but Rogers had pulled enough of his punches that there wasn't anything broken. A couple of cracked ribs, sure, and the bruising wasn't going to fade anytime soon, but nothing requiring hospitalisation.  _I'm fine, Pep,_ Tony had said, had promised, had shouted, in the days after.  _He didn't break anything, I'm fine!_

She'd just shaken her head.  _Sometimes, Tony, I don't know whether you're lying to me, or to yourself._

"Boss, have you made a decision about back-up?"

FRIDAY wouldn't let up.  _God damn it._ "Vision," he said abruptly. "I'll check in with T'Challa before going in, and I'll keep in contact with you throughout, FRI. I drop out of contact for more than four hours, you contact Vis and tell him where I am. You do  _not_ tell Rhodey, clear?"

"Yes, boss."

"And, FRI?"

"Yes, boss?"

"Four hours, baby girl. Not a moment earlier." He wasn't going to have Vision unavailable in the event of a major attack for nothing other than a poor cellphone signal. 

"Yes, boss."

He arrived at the coordinates on schedule, sending a quick burst of data to T'Challa before he crossed into the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast. The last thing he needed was T'Challa assuming a lack of communication from Tony amounted to a casualty and working his was down the contact list. 

He circled the Hydra base before landing. From his initial scan, it looked to be abandoned. Lead lining as well; someone didn't want prying eyes inside.  _Hmmm_.

There were signs of more recent habitation inside the base. The doors had been rebuilt, and then forced open again - courtesy of a supersoldier, no doubt - and there were supplies stacked near the entrance, mostly food rations. A supply run? Someone had re-occupied the base fairly recently, and Rogers had interrupted during a vulnerable moment. They'd tried to close the door, Rogers had fought...

"Cap?" he called out. 

"Boss, it might not be the best option to attract the attention of whoever was here," FRIDAY said in his ear, sounding worried. 

"They're not here anymore, FRI," Tony said absent-mindedly, rounding the corner. The base was clearly deserted; whoever had been here had obviously left. The question was, had they taken Rogers with them?  _Or..._

_No, don't think like that._

"Cap?" He called out again, more loudly. "Rogers, are you here?" If it had been Hydra, they would have likely taken Rogers with them. But Hydra wasn't the only military power in these parts; if it had been the Ossetian paramilitaries, they may not have even recognised Rogers without his shield. They may have evacuated and left him behind.  _Injured, probably. Or pinned down by rubble, maybe._  Likely needing medical attention, anyway.

He followed the trail of destruction until he came to what looked like a command centre. The damage was greatest here: the doors had been ripped clean off their hinges, the computers almost entirely destroyed. And, in the centre of it all -

"FRIDAY, am I seeing things? Is that what I think it is?"

"It does appear to be part of Captain Rogers' body armour," FRIDAY confirmed.

Yeah. The  _lower_ half. Boots and black combat trousers, utility belt, knife... unless Hydra had started outfitting its soldiers with Avengers-issue body armour, that outfit was something Tony himself had designed. Well, sort of. Clearly, Rogers had visited a tailor in Birnin Zana before running off on his jaunt.  _And where the hell is the rest of it? And St-Rogers?_   "Cap? You here?" He called out again. "Steve! Come on, show yourself, Rogers! Steve!"

He heard the whimper before he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. His head whipped around, the HUD tracking the source of the source and zeroing in on it in seconds. " _Jesus Christ!_ "

The source of the sound - a small boy, bare-legged and dwarfed by the Captain America upper body armour - peered tearfully out from beneath one of the discarded doors. He was blue-lipped, almost frozen.

 _Must have crawled under there to get out of sight when I arrived,_ Tony thought, with the part of his mind that was not busy having a nervous breakdown.

"Steve?" He managed.

The kid crawled out from under the metal cautiously, drawing himself up as tall and as brave as he possibly could. He had one of Rogers's smaller knives in his grip, held tremulously with both hands in front of him like a sword. "Who - who are you?" 

_Oh, shit._

*


	2. Chapter 2

God damn it, Tony fucking hated magic.

“Steve?”

The kid looked terrified, tears and snot smeared across his face in picture-perfect misery. The kid - Steve - was so _small_. 

He stared at Tony and sniffled, letting go of the knife with one hand to drag his forearm across his face, managing to transfer both his snot and the majority of his camouflage make-up onto his oversized uniform sleeve. 

Tony had to physically restrain himself from grimacing. _Small children are disgusting,_ he thought. 

“You in there, Rogers?” He waved a cautious hand from a safe distance. Three metres was good, right? Not close enough to panic the kid into a sudden movement. (The last he needed was explaining to the world why he’d allowed a pint-sized Captain America to skewer himself in his presence.) “Hey, Steve? You recognise me, right? It's Ir- it's Tony. We’re friends. You remember that, right?” He inched forward carefully, his eyes on the blade. 

Steve peered up at him from under his fringe, clearly exhausted and terrified. He listed a little to the left, blinking slowly. There was a long dark bruise on his shin and both of his knees were skinned; he'd clearly fallen over more than a couple of times since the whatever-it-was had happened. “Are - are you a robot?”

 _Stay low to the ground, smile, and speak gently,_ Barton had said during one of their last debriefs before he’d retired. They'd had to evacuate a school bus of children, and it had… not gone especially well. The youngest kids had been so terrified, they'd crawled under the seats and refused to come out. Tony had ended up dragging the entire bus out of the line of fire because it had been easier than ripping it apart to look for the kids. _Not every kid is going to know who you are, or be okay with someone big and scary grabbing them unexpectedly. Calm them down and try not to traumatise them any more than they already are._

Those kids had already known who Iron Man was. Hell, one of them had been clutching an Avengers lunch-box. And they'd still crawled in between stale vomit and dropped Happy Meals to get away from him. What chance did Tony have with a kid who didn't even know if he was human? 

“Not a robot, Steve. I'm human; it's just a suit.” Moving slowly, Tony opened up the faceplate. “See? All human.”

Steve stared at him, calculating. “Like a knight?”

“Yes, that's - that's exactly right. This is just my armour. It helps me fight bad guys.”

The kid’s gaze sharpened and he brought the knife up again. “How do I know you're not a bad guy?”

_Great. He doesn't even trust me when he's shrunk into a kidcicle._

“Was someone here, before? Steve? Were there bad guys here?” He inched forward a little more. 

“You didn't answer my question,” Steve said, waving the knife menacingly. His voice had gained a shrillness normally associated with missed naptimes or the loss of favourite toys. “Are you a bad guy?”

Tony swallowed and stopped moving. “I’m not. I'm your -” the word stuck in his throat. _So was I._ He coughed, and tried again. “I’m your friend, Steve.” _For whatever that’s worth._

It seemed to make no more of a difference this time around. 

The small face scrunched up in thought, the knife wavering. “I don't know you. And I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.” 

Tony inched forward a little bit again.

“Bet you're not supposed to touch knives either, huh?” He was almost close enough to make a grab for the knife. “I bet your mom would have a lot to say if she saw you waving that around.” He could probably grab the knife. He should. He should just - “Give me the knife, Steve. I'm not a bad guy, and I'm not here to hurt you.” He held out a hand. 

Steve’s eyes were the same, Tony thought. That same clear blue gaze, taking in everything that Tony was and could be, and finding him somehow wanting. _He’s not Rogers yet_ , he reminded himself. _He’s just some kid right now._ The eyes might be the same, but it wasn't the same Steve looking back at him. “Steve?” Tony held his breath. 

After a moment, Steve lowered the knife. “Okay,” he whispered, his shoulders slumping. He offered the knife up, handle first. 

Tony exhaled slowly, closing his hand around the knife and tugging it gently from the kid’s lax grip. “Thanks, buddy. I'm just gonna put this to one side so we don't trip over it, okay?” He slid the knife on top of one of the consoles. 

Steve was still watching him wearily, swaying a little. 

“Right, you must be frozen.” Christ, he had to warm the kid up quickly. “I'm just gonna -” Still moving slowly, he started opening up the manual latches along the suit. He stepped out once it was open enough, shivered as the cold air hit him. It was freezing even in his thermal undersuit; Steve was probably risking hypothermia. “Sit,” he told the suit, and it obediently sprawled down on the ground. “Let's get you inside, okay?”

“In-inside?”

“Inside the suit,” he said. Fuck, it was cold. “It's heated, it'll warm you up.” It would also - helpfully - keep an eye on Steve’s vital stats. The suit was capable of acting as a life support system when required; if necessary, Tony could seal the kid inside until help arrived. 

“Inside the armour?” Steve said again, his eyes wide. 

“It’s just to keep you warm, okay? You need to trust me on this, we don’t want your toes falling off or anything. I don’t think I’d be able to explain turning up with you missing any digits.” He eyed the discarded uniform pants. He could probably tie them off at the knees or something, and clip them around the kid to keep them on. They’d help to preserve the heat a little, and would also give him something in the way of footwear (the boots were, of course, far too big to be of any use). But he needed to warm him up first, or there would be no temperature to preserve.

Moving slowly, he slid his hands under Steve’s (too thin, too narrow) shoulders and lifted him up and into the seated, open armour. He was small enough to fit easily in the chest cavity, his knees pressed to his chest. Tony thought about pulling the armour closed a little around him, but he wasn’t sure whether Steve had any issues with confined spaces and the last thing he wanted was a crying fit on his hands. 

“FRIDAY, warm him up, please, and run vitals while you’re at it.” 

Steve looked up at him in wonder as the suit heating elements kicked in, cranked up a little higher than normal to compensate for the open chest plate. 

“That okay?”

Steve nodded silently, pressing back into the back plating. 

“Alright. You stay there for a little bit, I’m just going to -” _check everyone is dead_ “- have a look around.” At Steve’s panicked look, he held up his hands placatingly. “The suit will keep you safe until I get back, ok? FRIDAY, sentry mode.” Both arms rose, the repulsors powering up.

The kid jumped at the sound, almost toppling out of the suit with fright. “It’s alive!”

“No, it’s just - it’s just a machine, see?” He patted the left arm. “It’s just metal. It does what I say, it’s not alive.” Although it was probably best not to explain FRIDAY until he had Steve settled and the perimeter locked down. The last thing he needed was a spooked kid running away and screaming about ghosts, or whatever old timey thing he’d assume the AI was.

After a moment, Steve reached out and touched the arm as well. A crooked grin appeared as he tentatively stroked the metal, trying to pry his fingers in between the plates. 

“Okay, you just… you stay put for a while.”

He fled without waiting for an answer, grabbing the discarded knife and practically running down the corridor.

“FRIDAY, talk to me,” he muttered under his breath as soon as he was out of earshot.

FRIDAY’s voice was staticky, the connection from the suit to the earbud clearly disrupted by something. “He is underweight, asthmatic, and vitamin-deficient. His body temperature was 35.5 C when he was placed in the suit; it is now up to 35.6 C and will climb 0.1 C every fifteen minutes if he remains inside the suit. He has minor abrasions on his legs and he is dehydrated and exhausted.” She paused for a moment. “You have been inside the base for one hour, eighteen minutes, boss,” she said finally. “The lead lining is disrupting transmissions, and I have not been able to contact the Tower or any other back-up. If the suit does not make contact with my main presence within the next two hours, forty-two minutes, my main presence will contact Vision to retrieve you.” 

Tony grimaced. “Remind me again when it’s down to fifteen minutes.” He needed to find out what the hell had happened. But before then - “keep scanning for danger, and let me know if you detect any activity.” 

“Yes, boss.”

He walked the inside perimeter as quickly as he could, his shoulders hunched up against the cold, his footsteps quiet on the metal floor. The base was abandoned. Had been abandoned some time ago, clearly, and the signs of recent use indicated a small party, rather than a significant occupation. Some weapons, some food, and -

_Oh, you have got to be kidding me._

“Well,” he said faintly, staring in horror at the pile of bodies. “That’s a special level of fucked up.”

“You said a bad word,” a small voice piped up from behind him, and Tony nearly leapt a foot in the air. 

“Jesus Christ, Rogers!” He put a hand on his chest, breathing hard. “Don’t scare me like - _no_ , don’t look!” He grabbed for the kid, clapping a hand over his eyes. “Why are you out of the suit? I told you to stay put!”

“No, you didn’t,” Steve said, wriggling against him. “Put me down!”

Tony hoisted him up in his arms, all his earlier resolutions of treading lightly and carefully forgotten in his panic. “Don’t look at it, come on -” He manhandled the small body back down the corridor, ignoring Steve’s vociferous protests the entire way until he was back at the main control room.

On cue, FRIDAY burst to life in his ear. The connection must have flickered as he’d explored, and he hadn’t noticed it going offline. “- the suit. Boss, Steve Rogers has left the suit. Boss, Steve Rogers -”

“Yeah, thanks FRIDAY,” he said wearily, dropping the kid back inside the chest cavity. “Now,” he said, sitting down opposite the mutinous-looking Steve, “you want to explain why you didn’t listen to me? I told you to stay put!”

“You said to stay put _for a while_ ,” Steve said mulishly, hugging his knees to his chest. “I did. It was _ages_.”

 _It wasn’t even fifteen minutes,_ Tony thought in exasperation. “Is this where you tell me that the moral of the story is, I should have been more specific? Because you’re not winning any fans with your attempt to play the lawyer, here.” _Christ, I sound like my father._ He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Did something happen?” He asked, his voice softer. “Did you hear something? Is that why?”

Steve chewed his lower lip, staring at his scraped knees. “No,” he admitted finally, his voice miserable. He was silent for a long moment. “I just didn’t want to be on my own.” When he looked up, his eyes were glassy and wet. “I got scared.”

… _Great._

“You know, you haven’t asked me what happened.” He reached out and poked one spindly arm. “How I know you, where you are.” _Where your parents are,_ but he managed to clamp his mouth shut before that slipped out.

Steve shrugged a little. “Magic,” he said quietly. “I’m supposed to be older, right?”

“What makes you say that?”

Another shrug. “I woke up in clothes that were a lot bigger than me. And - I wasn’t lying, before. I saw the b-bodies.” He breathed sharply as he said the word, almost hiccuping. “They looked like - like they were bigger, before, before they -”

 _Damn it._ He’d hoped… but no, it was too much to ask for. He closed his eyes and dug the heels of his hands against them, trying to blot out the image that immediately sprung up. 

He had to keep him talking. “Do you remember what happened?”

Steve shook his head slowly. “No. I woke up where you found me. I looked around. Got cold. Came back.”

And waited, in the freezing cold, probably scared out of his mind, while Tony was asking T’Challa why couldn’t _someone else_ go help. _Jesus fuck._

“Well, you’re not wrong. You’re meant to be… older. And, uh, obviously I know you. The older you.” He waved a hand vaguely. “We’re, uh, friends.”

Steve nodded obediently at that, his face hidden against the crook of his arm.

Tony sighed. Well, he’d tried. It wasn’t his fault he had no idea what to do with a pint-sized and traumatised Steve Rogers. He barely had any idea what to do with him when he was adult-shaped and not in danger of breaking by sneezing too hard. “We’ll fix this, don’t worry,” promised, mentally running through his options. T’Challa, of course - he could mind Rogers until Wanda or someone else managed to turn him back - or maybe he could contact Thor, see if his lunatic brother couldn’t be persuaded to help them out… that was, if Loki wasn’t behind this in the first place.

“Okay. Well, not to worry. My friend will come get us very soon, and we can take you back to where you’ve been staying.” He had a sudden thought and winced. Grit his teeth and ploughed on. “You can even see your pal Bucky again.”

The small head snapped up. “Bucky?” Steve asked, his voice tremulous. “He’s here?”

“No.” He hoped. “But, I can take you to him.” He thought. He’d have to either go outside - leaving the kid sans suit-heater again - and set up a link there, or get the communications working from the inside. The base still had a power supply, albeit in the form of generators, and the exit hadn’t been orderly. He could probably get that sorted out just as easily from inside the control room. And he’d be able to contact FRIDAY at the same time. It’d be a little more time consuming, but he didn’t want to take the kid out of the suit any earlier than he had to. “Tell you what. You stay inside the suit and warm up, and I’ll have a look at getting com- uh, a phone line up and running.” He’d be able to get at the data back-ups at the same time, see if there was anything useful in there.

Steve nodded slowly, agonising hope melting across his face. “Okay, mister,” he whispered.

*

The main computer was a piece of junk. He’d never been less enthused about being on his back for any piece of teach. “I have calculators more powerful than you, and I am frankly offended to be in the presence of something so ancient,” he informed it, half-wedged inside the console to get a better look. He’d dumped whatever he could of the data core into a portable back-up, and had been trying to figure out what was wrong with the comms system. It looked like some of the wiring was even more lowest-bidder than normal. “My kingdom for a transistor radio,” he muttered, starting to strip the wires. _At least that, you could fix easily. Who the hell designed this mess?_ “Steve, you still in the suit?” He called out.

“Yes, sir,” came back the drowsy reply.

Tony grunted and carried on, cursing under his breath when he sliced his finger open. He’d had to spend about an hour inside the console, and had taken to checking in periodically on Steve’s location. “Maybe another five minutes,” he promised.

“Mhuh,” Steve agreed, sounding half-asleep. 

_There._ The system powered on with a distressed-sounding whine and Tony crawled out of the console hurriedly, not especially keen to accidentally electrocute himself using crappy ex-Soviet cast-offs. “Okay, I think we’re in business. Let me get this thing up and running.” It took a few minutes longer of cajoling the crappy system to draw on the crappy generator with its crappy diesel in a consistent enough fashion that the line wasn’t constantly dropping, but he managed it. 

First things first. “FRIDAY, can you hear me?”

“Boss?” FRIDAY said, sounding as surprised as it was possible for her to be. “Are you okay? Is the suit damaged? This line is not entirely secure,” she added chidingly before he could speak.

“Suit’s fine, I’m fine, it’s all fine. Listen,” he looked back at the almost-asleep Steve cuddled up inside the suit and grimaced. “I’ve found who I was looking for, and he’s not in the best of state. I think I need to get him back to his friends, but we can’t travel in the suit. I may need a hand. Are you able to arrange it?”

There was a pause. “Done,” she said. “Help will be with you in a few hours to assist with evacuation. Are you in any immediate danger?”

Tony looked back at Steve again. He’d burrowed down into the suit so that only the top of his head was visible. The suit was still in sentry mode, the arms extended and the repulsors powered up. And now that he had the main system up and running, he could probably keep an eye on whether anyone was returning. “Should be okay.” But… “Once we’re out of here, we’ll need to contact the authorities,” he admitted. “Some magic user has been through here, doing some pretty twisted stuff, and they’ll need to mop up.”

“A magic user?” FRIDAY voice rose in concern. “Boss, is there any chance they’ll come back?”

The thought had occurred to Tony. “If so, I’ll get us out of here.” Somehow, he doubted that anyone would be coming back. What he’d seen in the other room - the careful arrangement of bodies, the ritual aspects of it - had seemed pretty… final. Wherever the magic user had gone, they’d taken what they’d needed. Why would they come back for the corpses? “Tell the rescue to hurry, would you, baby girl? This place gives me the creeps.” He glanced back at the sleeping Steve. “And tell them to bring blankets and medical supplies, okay?”

FRIDAY’s voice was even more strained. “Yes, boss. Right away. Are you able to maintain contact until help arrives?”

“No, there’s limited power, I don’t want to drain it in case there’s a problem. Just - send them to us, we’ll be waiting.” They didn’t have much choice on that front.

“Yes, boss.”

Tony signed off and paused, staring at the console thoughtfully. Probably it would be best to power the system down entirely and preserve the scarce fuel… but the distress call had already gone off, help was on its way, and their best line of defence was the suit. And what if FRIDAY needed to contact him in the meantime? 

He left the power on, disconnecting the unnecessary systems to preserve the energy. What next? Heat, supplies, shelter. The room was still incredibly cold, and despite Tony’s thermal undersuit and the need to crawl into a computer that rapidly heated up to the temperature of a furnace, he was still cold. But if people had been staying here, they would have had useful supplies, like water, and blankets.

A quick investigation of the supply pallets he’d passed on his way in through the base revealed cold weather survival kits clearly pilfered from UNICEF and Medecins Sans Frontieres (they even had the “funded by…” logos, including Stark Industries for one set - they must have been routed through the relief organisation). Survival blanket, one-size-fits-all blanket, a LifeStraw and Plumpy’nut packages. He grimaced at the latter but collected a stack of them, figuring that the kid could probably do with the emergency nutrition. Come to think of it, the adult Steve Rogers would have found the Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food offerings a blessing in disguise; he’d always complained how he couldn’t get enough food post-battle. They’d tried nutrition bars (mostly sugar), protein shakes (impractical, and who the hell had the space to carry them around?) and even baby food (just… no); in the end they’d opted to follow up missions with a trip down to the nearest open restaurant. But something like the RUTFs could probably fill that niche, and get them stable enough to get back to base immediately after alien battles or similar.

Thankfully, the pint-sized Steve Rogers was still dead to the world when Tony returned from his foraging. Tony assembled a floor pallet fairly quickly and piled all the blankets on top, cushioning it to prevent heat-loss. 

“What are you doing?” A small voice asked.

Tony looked back to see Steve peeping over the raised arm of the suit, his eyes wide. “I’m making a warm place. We’re going to have to wait for our lift back, and it will take a little while. So I’m just… making a warm place.”

“Out of foil?”

“It’ll keep the heat in,” Tony said, with more conviction than he felt. He knew the physics of it, of course, but his brain didn’t want to believe the truth of it, not when it looked like what you’d use to truss up a turkey. “It’s a space blanket.”

Steve watched him with wide eyes. 

Tony brought him the LifeStraw - filled from the water tank on the way back - and a couple of packages of the Plumpy’nut. “You hungry? Or thirsty?” Should have probably asked that earlier, but… other priorities. 

Steve shook his head, his eyes still on the foil-wrapped pallet. “Why don’t you put the suit back on if you’re cold?”

Tony flashed him a quick smile and set the water and food within reach of the suit. “I think you need it more than I do, given that you’re running around in a t-shirt. Eat if you can.” He retreated back to the pallet, wrapping the blanket around himself. It was… not the cosiest he had ever been.

Across the room, Steve continued to stare, unmoving from his place inside the suit. 

“... what?” Tony asked finally.

“Is Bucky coming to get us? Or,” Steve swallowed. “Or a grown-up?”

“ _I’m_ a grown-up,” Tony said coldly, a little irritated at this unnecessary critique of his rescuing skills. “And your pal’s in no shape to mount a rescue.” He grimaced at the stricken look on Steve’s face. “We’re gonna be evacuated to him soon, and you can see him as much as you like then. But try and stay in the suit, ok? I don’t want you turning back into a Capsicle before then.”

There was a long silence. 

Tny ground his teeth, feeling the last of his patience and energy ebb away. He was exhausted, operating on practically no sleep and the last reserves of his adrenaline, and yet again, Rogers was finding him wanting in some way. “What, Steve? What do you need?” Tony snapped. “I can’t make your beloved murderbot appear from thin air, I’m trying to keep you alive until we get out of here despite you being an even more irritating version than the adult you, and you don’t listen to me when you’re like this any more than you did when you were Captain Spangles. So _what_ , exactly, do you want that I’m not providing, here?”

Steve’s lower lip trembled. “I want my Bucky. I want my _mom_ ,” he wailed, and that seemed to be what threw open the floodgates. He sobbed as if his world had ended, his arms wrapped around his thin chest in a vain effort to - what? Stop? Or - and Tony’s heart sank - or to comfort himself, because he'd already figured out that the strange man he was with wasn't going to be any help on that front. 

_Oh, crap._ “Oh, hey now. Hey, there's no need to cry,” he tried desperately, scooting across to awkwardly pat Steve on the back and nearly toppling him over. Christ, the kid was a stick. He could probably pick him up, he certainly looked small enough… Gingerly, ready to drop him if he so much as made a peep of discomfort, Tony reached into the suit and gathered Steve up in his arms. “There, now,” he tried again, passing a hand over Steve’s back. He could feel the press of ribs against his fingers, and he shivered. Too thin, too fucking thin… “I’m sorry I yelled. I didn’t mean it. It's going to be okay.”

Steve didn't seem to have any faith in that, but at least he didn't seem to object too much to being manhandled. He simply let himself be picked up, not letting go of his ribs but curling up so his face was buried in Tony’s neck. He sobbed, wet and pained-sounding, his whole body shaking with the force of it. 

Oh, Tony was definitely going to hell. 

Maneuvering back to the pallet, Tony ended up with his back against the wall, Steve curled up in his arms, the blanket wrapped around them both. “FRIDAY, bring the suit here and crank up the heat as much as you can, alright,” he muttered, and the suit obligingly got up and positioned itself beside them, the chest still open. He patted Steve’s back. “I’m really sorry I yelled, Steve,” he tried again. “I was just tired and angry with everything. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“You said we were friends,” Steve sobbed, his whole body shaking. “You said it, but you don’t like me at all!”

Correction: he was already in hell.

“Let’s talk about it once we get you back to safety, okay?” He said, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour. Steve stared up at him, his face tear-streaked and displaying his emotions for all the world to see. _How the hell did you manage to lie to me for so long,_ Tony thought, and it was a knife between his ribs. “Of course I like you,” he said, tightening his arms around Steve’s thin frame. “I just… I’m not quite sure if the feeling is mutual.”

Steve sniffled, and wiped his nose on Tony’s shoulder.

“... and that’s revolting.” 

Steve didn’t seem to hear him, finally letting go of the death-grip he had on his ribs to worm his cold hands around Tony’s neck instead, letting his head fall on Tony’s shoulder. 

Tony stayed perfectly still, listening to Steve’s breathing slowly evening out before he slipped into an exhausted sleep. From this angle, Tony could only really see the top of his head, and the curve of one ear. He was so _small_. 

_I guess it doesn’t matter what the situation is; when it comes to you, I’m guaranteed to make things worse._ Despite himself, Tony’s arms tightened.

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for child peril/illness, and brief mentions of child death.

Tony jolted awake a few hours later to the unmistakable feeling of someone pressing down on his bladder. The weight sprawled out on him shifted a little in sleep and managed to wedge a knee even more firmly into Tony’s abdomen. 

_Not a dream, then,_ Tony thought, looking down at the towheaded boy cushioned safely in his arms. Steve’s mouth hung open in sleep, a whistling sound pushed out of him with each breath. Tony frowned. That didn’t sound especially healthy, and the last thing Steve needed was a bout of pneumonia on top of everything. And would FRIDAY have been able to pick up any bacteria that may have come back with Steve? If he had his child memories and none of his adult ones, that seemed to imply it was some sort of time-portal magic nonsense rather than de-aging magic nonsense. (Magic nonsense just the same, and Tony fucking hated magic, period, but at least he had a rough idea of what he was dealing with.) But that probably meant that the kid was covered in ye olde germs. For all Tony knew, he could have brought back fucking _polio_.

_No, don’t be stupid, if Steve had had polio, we would have known._ Surely, someone would have mentioned the tragic yet heroic story of how Captain America yadda yadda yadda. And if not the relentless Cold War propaganda engine, then SHIELD would have made a note of it somewhere. He couldn’t recall anything other than pleurisy in Steve’s official file, but…

Moving gently so as not to wake him, Tony deposited Steve back down on the foil-pallet, his back to the open suit. “FRIDAY, crank up the heat a bit.” He tucked the foil blanket around Steve carefully, frowning at how cold his fingers felt. His capillary refill was also worrying. He’d warmed up some, but he was still dangerously cold, and he hadn’t managed to eat any of the food Tony had brought him. None of this filled Tony with any confidence. _Well, it’s not like I can do anything for him here._ He needed to get the kid to a medical centre and have him checked out properly.

Shivering as the cold hit him dead-on, Tony made his way outside - not too far, and keeping the entrance in his line of sight - to take care of the call of nature. _Fuck, it’s cold._ He hoped that their ride would arrive soon. The temperature had dropped rapidly as the light had fled, and if it got much colder - and if Steve’s breathing didn’t improve - he’d have to consider alternatives to staying put and waiting for rescue.

He made his way back as quickly as he could and gingerly crawled under the foil blankets, trying to stop his shivers. 

“Where’d you go?” Steve mumbled, burrowing his nose into Tony’s neck. He yawned and hiccuped at almost the same time, his face creasing in displeasure as he sniffled and tried to find a comfortable sleeping position.

“Shhh, just go back to sleep,” Tony murmured, and wrapped the blanket around them more securely. He figured he’d stay awake himself. Steve was clearly halfway back to unconscious, but Tony was wide-awake and it was really too fucking cold to sleep. He’d just stay here to make sure the kid was okay, maybe check the comms console for any messages, and -

He was asleep before he finished the thought.

*

“This is so fucking adorable, I think I just threw up a little in my mouth,” a very familiar voice said from far too close.

Startled, Tony flailed awake before he’d managed to orient himself, lashing at whoever was hovering over him.

Crouched beside the pallet, Barton narrowly escaped getting punched by virtue of toppling backwards on his ass instead. “Hey, steady!”

Tony breathed hard, trying to push back the instinctive panic at being startled awake. “Don’t fucking _do_ that, asshole,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand across his face.

“You said a bad word,” Steve piped up groggily from under the blankets. He blinked up at Barton. “Are you here to rescue us?” 

There was a pause during which Tony looked down at Steve, and Steve looked at Barton, and Barton - Tony had the horrible feeling - was looking at Tony. “... yeah,” Barton said eventually, clambering up to his feet with zero grace. “I’m here to rescue you. You must be Steve?” It somehow came out as a question. 

“Yeah,” Tony said into Steve’s hair, trying to peel the kid away from where he was plastered against his side. “He’s been turned into a munchkin. Maybe six years old?”

“I’m _seven,_ ” Steve said, sounding both congested and outraged at this grave injustice. He glared up at Tony, who shrugged back, and squirmed around to wave at Clint politely. “Hello, mister. I’m Steve Rogers, what’s your name?”

_Oh, great, he’s polite and friendly with everyone except me; shoulda seen that one coming,_ Tony thought, unreasonably irritated by this. It’s not like he’d ever figured out a way to get on Rogers’s good side when he’d been an adult, and it looked like the pint-sized version was just as set against him. 

“I’m Clint,” Barton said, trying not to laugh. He waved back. “How are you doing, Steve?” 

Tony got to his feet with a hiss of pain at the stiffness in his joints, pointedly ignoring the quick look Barton threw him. “He’s cold, malnourished and not breathing especially well,” he said shortly. “Did you bring blankets?”

Clint wordlessly dragged across the duffel bag he’d dumped on one side, and produced a heavy thermal blanket from the depths, shaking it out. He attempted to reach around Steve to wrap it around him but stopped when Steve shrank back against Tony, hiding behind his leg. 

_Brave enough to speak to him, but not enough to let him get too close,_ Tony thought. Or maybe it was because Tony was a known quantity. Well. A _better_ -known quantity, anyway. “What’s the plan, then?” He asked, accepting the blanket and brusquely wrapping it around the kid. He hesitated a moment - a small part of him wondering if Barton would take it as a threat, and then another part of him telling him to quit being paranoid, and then _another_ part of him telling him that probably the ship of ‘mutual trust and respect’ had sailed several weeks previously - and then sighed and hoisted the kid up in his arms. Barton would shoot him, or not - and it looked like it would be _not_ , if the vaguely approving look he got at this was any indication. He rather thought that Steve would protest, but maybe the kid had realised that walking barefoot was gonna be just as miserable now as it had been before. At any rate, he wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck and didn’t protest the embrace, slumping against Tony’s shoulder immediately.

“Quinjet’s standing by to get us to Wakanda,” Barton said. His gaze was thoughtful as he watched Tony struggle to get back into the armour without dropping the sleepy child in his arms. “I figured you could make your way back from there, once we get Steve settled down.”

_Once someone else has custody of him,_ Tony translated, and mentally shrugged. It was a stroke of luck that Barton had been sent, really; for all that Barton likely wanted to put an arrow in Tony’s head, his loyalty to Rogers hadn’t ever wavered. And he was the only one on the team who had actual parenting experience. If they were lucky, the kid would attach to him on the flight over and once they got checked over by medical, Tony would be able to just… go. He still had to investigate the clusterfuck of nightmare fuel in the other room. 

Honestly, he was a little surprised he’d slept so soundly. He’d have thought that dropping off when there was a corpse-filled room a few metres away would have been difficult, but apparently he’d been more exhausted than he’d thought.

That, or his temperature had also dropped to dangerous levels.

“I need to stop by the largest storage room,” Tony said abruptly, hefting up Steve so he was cradled against his shoulder rather than wrapped around his waist. This way, he could keep his bare feet covered with the blanket. Strangely, Steve didn’t protest the man-handling and let Tony arrange him without complaint. “I think it’s where the original… whatever it was went down. I don’t have a record of it yet.” And he’d definitely need a record of the bodies. The positioning was ritualistic - no bodies ended up in that configuration naturally - so whoever had killed them, had either needed their deaths for something (and the time-related magic had been a side effect) or had needed their deaths post-deaging. Either way, nineteen tiny bodies arranged in such a specific manner - _and mutilated,_ his brain supplied, _the mutilation was very specific, you don’t do something like that nineteen times for fun - or I fucking hope no one does_ \- had to be for a reason. He was betting that the layout was recognisable to… well, okay, he wasn’t sure who would recognise the layout, because he tried not to socialise with people who dismembered children. But someone would know what the hell had happened at the base. 

Barton raised an eyebrow. “The suit didn’t record it?”

“Wasn’t wearing the suit when I found it.” He shifted Steve in his arms and looked down. “You want to stay with Clint while I go look?” 

Steve hesitated for a long moment, blinking up at him, and then shook his head.

“Okay. Well, you have to promise to keep your eyes closed, then. Deal?”

There was an even longer hesitation. “Deal,” Steve said finally. His nose scrunched up. “I saw it, anyway. Don’t need to see it again.”

“... right.” He’d probably been traumatised enough for one lifetime already. God knew how fucked up he’d be by the time they managed to turn him back into his adult self. 

They got the rest of their stuff squared away, Barton picking up all the various backups that Tony had ripped out of the main console - and the remnants of Steve’s abandoned armour - and stuffing them in the carry-all. “Okay, ready?” 

Steve hid his face against Tony’s shoulder again and Tony flipped the blanket over his head, tightening his hold. “All set.”

They walked out together, heading back down the corridor towards the smell of blood.

*

Back at the quinjet, Tony was somehow unsurprised to see Romanoff in the pilot’s seat. “Fancy meeting you here,” he said. “Bored already of the outlaw lifestyle?” He thought about dumping Steve on the nearest seat and getting the suit closed, but… well, if either of them had planned to kill him, it would have been a lot easier to do that before he’d had a kid in his arms. And although he couldn’t quite stop himself from looking over his shoulder periodically, the most Barton had managed in the way of revenge had been to roll his eyes. This … was not what Tony had expected. He shifted Steve in his arms again and considered what to do. _If they thought I was a threat to him, they would have taken him away already -_ but hadn’t he wanted Barton to do that? Wasn’t the whole point to deposit the kid at casa del A-Team and then get back to a full schedule of nightmares and anxiety?

His head fucking hurt.

For her part, Romanoff similarly did not seem inclined to start shooting. Or stabbing. Or -

Romanoff’s eyes flickered to the bundle of blankets in Tony’s arms - and the spindly, bare arms that poked out to cling to the raised collar of the Iron Man suit - and she raised an eyebrow. “I was in the neighbourhood.”

Despite himself, Tony’s lips quirked up in a smile. Goddamit, he’d _missed_ this. He’d missed _them._

“Heads up, Cap’s been shrunk into a kidlet,” Barton offered, closing the door and stowing their gear away. “Suggest we get him unshrunk as soon as possible. Also, something seriously freaky went down in that base. It’s Lovecraftian levels of fucked up in there.” He glanced across to where Steve was slumped in Tony’s arms. “Uh, messed up,” he corrected himself.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Does your wife allow this kind of potty-mouth at home?”

“Laura has a swear jar,” Barton said.

“It’s a swear bucket,” Romanoff corrected, unstrapping herself and cautiously approaching, hand held out, reaching for Steve’s cheek. “May I?” 

“He doesn’t need to smell you, he’s not a dog,” Tony said, irritated. He hefted Steve in his arms, jostling him a little. Steve had done as promised and stayed under the blanket the entire time they’d been in the storage room, not making a peep as Tony recorded the bodies and the smeared symbols on the floor. “Hey, kid, you awake?” 

“Mmph,” Steve said, and yawned into Tony’s neck. “‘M tired.” 

Tony felt a prickling of dread crawl down his spine. Steve had been drowsy for a while; he’d woken up to meet Barton, but he’d held on to Tony the entire time, and he’d slumped pretty heavily once he’d been carried. Was he dropping off because he was finally somewhere properly warm, or… “Hey, come on now. Steve, you okay?” He tugged the blanket away. Steve’s head lolled against Tony’s shoulder, heavy-lidded and lethargic, his cheeks red and his blonde hair plastered to him with sweat. His breath came out of him in whistling little gasps, louder than it had been only a few hours ago. His lips, Tony thought, and he suddenly couldn’t breathe past the knot in his chest. His lips were tinged with blue. “Oh, _shit_.”

In an instant, Barton was at his side. “What’s wrong?”

Tony tipped Steve back, angling his head so that Barton could see. “His lips are going blue.”

“Hypothermia?” 

Tony shook his head. “His extremities were very cold before, but I got his core temperature up pretty quickly, and FRIDAY would have alerted me if it had slipped back down again.” He released one hand from the suit and pressed it against the nape of Steve’s neck. “I thought his breathing sounded a bit off earlier…” He shouldn’t have been holding the kid against the armour like that, or letting him sleep on his back, for that matter; he’d probably made it worse. “God fucking dammit!”

“You said a bad word _again_ ,” Steve said, his words slurred. He seemed to be trying to keep his eyes open and failing. 

“Steve? Come on, buddy -” 

Between him and Barton, they got Steve to the medical table at the back of the quinjet, while Romanoff slid back into the pilot’s seat and got them back in the air in a hurry. There wasn’t a whole lot of useful medical equipment available - the kits were stocked primarily for battlefield medicine and trauma, and so were heavy on the bandages and medical-grade surgical glue, and light on pretty much everything else. After a lot of rifling they managed to find a couple of small canisters of albuterol, presumably for damaged airways or for post-gas exposure. He got a dose of that into Steve, bracing him against his chest so he had something to push against as he coughed and wheezed. Barton tore through the med kit until he came up with one lone packet of Tylenol probably left over from a civilian evacuation or something, and managed to convince the half-asleep Steve to get a quarter of a crushed-up tablet down him with a drink of water. 

“Is it a safe dosage for someone his age?” Tony asked, suddenly anxious. “I thought you weren’t supposed to give the adult stuff to kids.” He’d read that somewhere. Hadn’t he? Wouldn’t Barton know this stuff? He’d managed to raise three kids, surely that meant he knew what he was doing...

Barton shrugged a little helplessly. “It’s what we give to Cooper when he’s sick and we’re out of baby Tylenol.” He reached out and brushed a lock of sweaty hair out of Steve’s eyes. He looked up at Tony and his lips were a thin line. “How long has he been wheezing?”

“Since - I don’t know, sometime during the night,” Tony said, his hackles rising despite his best intentions. “Look, I know I should have done something, but…” But he hadn’t known what to do. So he’d hoped it would go away, or at least wait until they were in Wakanda, in a hospital with proper medicine and, you know, _doctors._ Something occurred to him. “Hang on. Why are you here? FRIDAY said she was calling for help.” He doubted that she’d neglect to mention to T’Challa if she’d dispatched someone separately. No, this must be the rescue he’d requested. So - since when was FRIDAY contacting Barton? Since when did FRIDAY know how to contact Barton - _oh, that sly motherfucker._ “T’Challa said he couldn’t get a hold of you,” he said bitterly. “Why the hell did I believe that?”

Barton shook his head. “He couldn’t. We got the message in the dead drop after you’d already arrived at the base; once T’Challa knew you needed collecting, he gave us the details and FRIDAY provided the quinjet.”

Tony squinted at him. “FRIDAY provided the quinjet,” he said flatly. “Right. Rather than sending Vision, or -” or Rhodey, he’d been about to say, but snapped his mouth shut before it could escape.

There was an odd look in Barton’s eyes. “You asked for a lift, not for back-up. Vision and Rhodes are waiting for us at Birnin Zana. Sam and Scott should get there by the time we arrive as well.”

Yeah, no. “Really? Just like that, the whole gang back together. Is everyone singing kumbaya? Did I miss the group hug?” He could feel the assholishness of his tone grating, but he couldn’t stop himself. Sure, Rhodey and Vis would be kicking back in Birnin Zana, probably having a nice drink with Wilson, maybe playing a bit of croquet with Maximoff. _Sure._ Because everyone was _such good friends._

Barton folded his arms and scowled at him. “In case you forgot, Steve’s been missing for over a day. No comms, no nothing. And then you go to get him, and then you also drop off the grid after sending a distress case with _zero fucking useful information_. We didn’t know if you’d found a corpse, or if there’d been serious damage and we’d find both of your bodies, or...” He glanced down at where Steve was splayed out on Tony’s chest, the small face tucked over Tony’s shoulder. His expression softened. “FRIDAY sent me a copy of your conversation with her. D’you know how freaked out you sounded? You both needed rescue. What did you think was gonna happen when something like that kicks off, Stark? We fucking _assembled._ ”

Tony opened his mouth to reply and then closed it again slowly. _We fucking assembled._ He’d been in danger, and they’d come together to do their thing. (Okay, it was him and Steve, but he wasn’t going to be picky here.) A small, cold place inside him abruptly warmed at the thought. Surely it had to count for something?

The warm feeling lasted for approximately ten seconds before the implications hit him: they’d all gathered, and so they’d all be in Wakanda when he arrived. All of them gathered in one place, and evidently able to do so without splitting into camps, without falling into violence -

( _And then what happened?_ Pepper had said to Tony in the aftermath of the bombing, of Berlin, of _Siberia_ , as he’d tried and failed to explain how everything had gone wrong so spectacularly. How he hadn’t been able to keep the team together. _Tony?_

_I just wanted them to listen,_ he’d admitted miserably to her. _Pep, I just wanted… I would have given anything if I could have just got them to listen to me. I was on their side. I was on their side! Why couldn’t I make them listen?_ )

After a beat, Tony looked away. “Yeah, okay,” he said, trying to to keep his tone even. “Thanks, I guess.” He could hear the bitterness in his voice.

Barton scowled and looked away. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Romanoff glance back at them, her expression unreadable.

*


	4. Chapter 4

T’Challa was waiting for them when they get back, his expression grim. There was a full medical team arrayed behind him - two gurneys, four nurses, and two doctors in medical smocks bearing the crest of Royal Hospital Birnin Zana - which immediately converged on Tony and Steve the moment they had disembarked, Barton and Romanoff bringing up the rear. 

“Dr Stark, welcome back. You requested medical assistance?” T’Challa’s gaze was sharp as he looked at the child Steve in Tony’s arms. “It is a hard thing to believe, to see him like this…”

“Believe it,” Romanoff said, moving to stand in front of Tony before he’d even managed to get his mouth open to reply. “We have a problem.”

“Yes, so I see.” T’Challa frowned. 

Romanoff shook her head. “Not them. We need to brief the others. Is everyone here?”

_Others?_ Tony mouthed at Barton, who shrugged. Despite Barton’s earlier declaration that the whole team had magically reassembled for God, Justice and the American Way, he had trouble believing it. Well, no, not when the American Way was currently sprawled in a feverish sleep on Tony’s shoulder, his breathing patchy and laboured. But the rest of it? That everyone else would be able to set aside what had happened so easily, when Tony had been unable to do so, and Rogers had only gone so far as to write him a _note_? No. 

That at least some of them would be better people than Tony - more able to compromise, to forgive - that, he could believe. But Rogers had run off half-cocked to fucking _Ossetia_ , and based on that, Tony would bet money that he wouldn’t have been expecting the remnants of the Avengers to come to his rescue. No, he must have been as convinced of the finality of their sundering as Tony was.

_Others,_ though. Clearly, they’d both been wrong, at least to some extent. That Tony might have had his head up his ass was not a new thought to him; likewise, the thought that Captain Perfect might have had the same. But both, at the same time, on the same point? That was more of a stretch. And yet... He looked at Barton, thinking hard. After Romanoff had absconded with the tattered remains of Tony’s dignity, who would have maintained contact between the two camps?

The shorter of the two doctors - the one with ‘Respiratory Diseases and Transitional Care Unit’ beneath the hospital crest - approached Tony cautiously. “May I examine him?” At Tony’s nod, she pressed a stethoscope under Steve’s oversized armour jersey. Whatever it was she heard was not good, judging by the way her face went expressionless. “Dr Stark? How long has his breathing been like this?”

Tony shook his head, focusing on her. His paranoia could wait, probably. “At least eighteen hours,” he said hoarsely. “We gave him a dose of albuterol and a quarter of a tablet of Tylenol for the fever. He’s been… he has, uh, pleurisy, I think. But the whistling is new. And he was in extreme cold for close to a day with inadequate thermal protection. I think we warmed him up before hypothermia or frostbite kicked in, but…”

She nodded. “We’ll check just the same. And if you come with us as well…” She took hold of his arm and gently led him to the gurneys. “We can check on you while you keep him company, yes? Just to make sure you’re alright.”

Numbly, he nodded. He should probably hand Steve over to the med team and be done with it - he needed to be there to talk with the others - but... well, he wasn’t too sure whether he’d be welcome at the briefing, if truth be told. Not if Barton and Romanoff were running the show. And Steve hadn’t let go of his death-grip on Tony’s undersuit, not even in his fevered sleep.

No, Barton had a copy of the data Tony had gathered on the bodies and the arrangement of the limbs. He could handle it. Tony could just send through anything relevant the doctors found in their examination of the kid and…

He let the doctor tug him away from where T’Challa had turned to Romanoff and Barton.

“What did you find?” T’Challa asked.

“Definitely a magic user,” Barton said, his voice tight. He glanced at Tony and looked away when he accidentally made eye contact. “And whatever it is they’re planning, it’s not small potatoes.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong on that score. Tony just hoped to god that it wasn’t Loki. The last thing they needed was a crazy Asgardian in the mix.

Although, come to think of it, a human who was willing to do what he’d seen in that room was probably no saner.

One of the nurses was urging him onto the gurney, hanging up an IV bag on each side of it, presumably one for him and another for Steve. He didn’t need the gurney, to be honest, but as Steve hadn’t let go, it would probably be easier to just lie down for a little bit so they could examine the kid more easily. 

God, he was tired. He’d just close his eyes for a little bit, and…

“ _They’re both pretty out of it,_ ” he heard someone say quietly, almost out of earshot. “ _Might be an idea to keep them both under until Rhodes gets here._ ”

That sounded wrong. Didn’t it? Wasn’t Rhodey back in the US? Or… no, wait...

His brow furrowed, he dropped off to sleep to the sharp pinch of the IV catheter sliding in to the back of his hand.

*

“Tony? You back with us?”

Goddamnit, his head hurt. “Shaddup,” he mumbled, grimacing. He blinked, dragging himself back to wakefulness with an effort. The light was right in his eyes and he winced, turning away.

“Sorry about that; could you get the - thanks.” 

The light abruptly dimmed, and Tony opened his eyes cautiously. Rhodey smiled back at him from beside the bed. He looked tired, dark circles smudged under his eyes and stubble on his chin. His clothes were rumpled, as if he’d been sleeping in them. “What -” Tony started, distressed. Something was wrong. His arms closed around empty air, the movement strange and upsetting. Where was…? Something was...

His hand jerk across the bed, patting the bed linen as if looking for something. (What was it?)

Rhodey reached out and grabbed hold of his wrist, squeezing reassuringly. “Steve’s just down the hall,” he said quietly. “They put him in the PICU for the time being. They hope to move him to a normal ward soon, but…” His grip tightened. “How are you doing?”

Steve? Why would Rogers be in a paediatric -

Oh. _Oh._ Abruptly, the events of the last couple of days slammed back into sharp focus and Tony bolted upright in the bed, his chest clenching. They must have put him under for a bit; he’d probably been running on fumes. How long had it been? And where was the kid? “Is he okay?” Of course he wasn’t, he was in _intensive care,_ he was in the fucking _PICU_ and there was no healing factor; he hadn’t been breathing properly and depending on how starved of oxygen his blood had been, he could have had fucking _brain damage_ -

“He’s fine,” Rhodey said, which made no sense. The kid was in the _PICU_ , for the love of God. 

At Tony’s disbelieving look, he sighed. “He has pneumonia. Wouldn’t be too much of a problem normally, but with the pleurisy and the low body temperature, they want to be on the safe side.”

God _damnit_. With an effort, Tony swung his legs over the side of the bed, struggling with the medical gown - when the hell had he been put in the gown and where the hell was his undersuit? He fucking hated hospitals, and not just because of their tendency to pilfer - oh, there it was, tucked under the bed. Well. Well, okay… “I need to see him.” He managed to get himself upright, leaning heavily on the arm of Rhodey’s wheelchair. “Where -”

“That’s not a great idea,” Rhodey said, trying to push him back on to the bed. “Tones, listen -”

Tony shoved him away - gently, _gently_ \- and took a wobbly step. “Rhodey, please, I need to -”

Something - someone? - moved in his peripheral vision and he flinched instinctively.

The whoever it was grabbed him from the side and manhandled him back on the bed. “Sit down before you fall down, man; I’ll get you a wheelchair,” Wilson said. He snorted at Tony’s expression, shaking his head. “One minute, okay? I’ll be right back.” He stepped out into the hallway.

Tony blinked after him. Wilson? What was Wilson doing -

“Steve’s gonna be fine,” Rhodey said in the short silence. He managed a smile, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I know it sounds serious, but it’s just a precaution, okay? You did good with him. You’ll see.” 

The blinds, Tony realised suddenly; Wilson must have been sat in the chair near the window and he’d closed the blinds when Tony had complained about the light. “What’s he doing here? What are _you_ doing here? I told FRIDAY…” He’d told her to send help. And he’d got Barton and Romanoff instead. Where was Vision? And what the hell was Rhodey doing in Wakanda, he was supposed to be in - “You said you were doing down to Bethesda,” he said, bewildered. “I asked if you wanted to stay in New York, and you said you needed some space to concentrate on your recovery and you were being transferred down to Walter Reed. You _said_ -” God, he’d thought that Rhodey was avoiding him. He’d known - he’d _known_ \- that Rhodey must have blamed him, to want to move to DC so suddenly...

“I was,” Rhodey said, and there was a hint of something shamed and defensive in his voice. His fingers beat a tattoo on the wheelchair armrest. “I did. Look, I didn’t want to commute to New Jersey every fucking day, okay? Bethesda’s just a lot easier, especially if you have someo- somewhere nearby. I needed to concentrate on getting better, Tony, I didn’t lie. But then this kicked off, and…”

Wilson came back into the room, pushing a wheelchair. “Come on, then, sleeping beauty, let’s go see your shrunken prince,” he said with only minimal sarcasm. He patted the wheelchair seat.

Tony looked at Rhodey. Rhodey looked at Tony, his fingers still doing that nervous _tap tap tap_ on the armrest.

_Oh, you are kidding me,_ Tony thought incredulously. Really? _Really?_

Okay, now was probably not the best time to get into that. He needed to check on the kid first, and then he’d corner Rhodey and -

He wagged a finger in Rhodey’s direction and tried to inject some levity in his voice. “This conversation is _not_ over, honeybear. Not by a long shot.” He slid gracelessly into the wheelchair and let Wilson clip his IV bag to the stand and stow his undersuit in the little wire basket underneath. _All I need are old-man slippers._ Oh, there they were. He let Wilson slide them on to his feet mutinously, avoiding eye contact. He’d let the team look after him before - post-battle, or during illnesses - so why did this feel different? 

( _You know why_.)

“Of course not,” Rhodey, sighing. “I’m not that lucky.” He sounded too tired to argue.

“Look on the bright side,” Wilson said, sounding far too chipper for Tony’s liking as he took his place behind Rhodey and carefully maneuvered the wheelchair out of the door, Tony following awkwardly. “Maybe Steve will turn back to normal and they’ll strangle each other before then.”

“Hey!”

“He’s not wrong, though,” Rhodey said, even more quietly, and ducked when Tony attempted to smack him. 

Yeah, that was a conversation that _definitely_ needed to happen.

*

The sight that greeted Tony as he wheeled into the PICU was not even a little bit reassuring. 

“Prepare yourself; he looks worse than he is,” Wilson said, and pushed the door open.

Tony opened his mouth to ask what the hell that meant, and… stopped.

Because - stretched out on the child-sized bed - was Steve, looking even paler than he had been during the flight over. There was a mask over his face, an IV catheter in his arm, and another trailing away from underneath his gown. _Shit._ They must be intending to keep him there for a while, if they’d hooked him up with an uretic catheter as well. 

Tony felt his breath catch. “His lungs -” He wasn’t intubated, at least, but...

Rhodey reached over and grabbed a hold of his hand, squeezing gently. “He’ll be fine,” he said quietly. He glanced up at Wilson, who was scowling, then back at Tony. “He’s in and out of it, a lot. Clint’s been sitting with him a little bit, you know, in between getting everything ready for - uh, later. He’s been asking for you,” he said after a moment. “Steve, obviously, not Clint.” He paused. “Although Clint has, as well, but mostly he said to tell you to quit lazing around and get dressed, so.” He shrugged.

Tony shot him a startled look. “For me?” Not for his mom, or his - his Bucky? (He wasn’t gonna dignify the Barton thing with a comment. Sure, Barton had asked for him. Had asked _Rhodey_ for him. _Sure._ )

“Well, he was delirious,” Wilson said, sounding as if the words were being dragged out of him with pliers. He’d stuffed his hands in his pockets and stepped away to lean against the wall. “He kept asking for Galahad. Took the nurses a while to figure it out; Arthurian mythology isn’t really that popular here. Clint thought it was a hoot, by the way, so you should probably brace yourself.”

Galahad? … _Oh._ The Red Knight, of course. Tony rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I told him my name,” he said. Hadn’t he? He thought he had… But with everything going on, maybe the kid had forgotten.

“He’s been pretty out of it,” Wilson said through gritted teeth. “Fever, and - you know.”

Tony glanced up, surprised at the emotion there. T’Challa had said that the Wakandan group had dispersed pretty early on, but he hadn’t expected Wilson to be one of them, or to be on the outs with Rogers. If that was what it was, of course; Wilson certainly seemed to have a lot of emotion going on there, but it was difficult to read what exactly had him so wired up. Probably seeing Rogers as a kid wasn’t helping any, but Tony doubted this was the reason for why Wilson seemed to be the most hostile of the lot of them, given everything. He’d somehow expected Barton to be the one out for blood.

Of course, he hadn’t expected Wilson to be spending time with Rhodey, either, so that was probably a factor. That is, if this thing was something recent, and not something that he was noticing just now. Bethesda, though… He couldn’t remember where Wilson’s place was, although he was fairly certain it was near DC. Had Wilson gone back to the US after the clusterfuck in Siberia? _Well, it would certainly explain a lot,_ Tony thought. If Wilson had snuck back into the US, it made sense that he’d head back to the area he knew best. And if he was going back for someone… it would explain why he’d split with Rogers, even with that whole hero-worship thing going on. If he had someone to get home to...

Dammit, he really needed to have that conversation with Rhodey as soon as humanly possible.

First, though -

He reached out and carefully took one of the little hands in his, mindful of the needle. “Hey, kid,” he whispered. “You’re doing great. I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Did they say when they need me at the debrief?”

Wilson looked back at him, his expression stony. “Yeah,” he said finally. “You have an hour or so before we need to be there, there’s one more person who needs to be - who needs to arrive.” He looked down at the small hand in Tony’s and seemed to hesitate. “Don’t screw this up,” he muttered finally, turning on his heel to leave.

“Statistically speaking, screwing up is pretty much guaranteed,” Tony offered, despite himself. 

A corner of Wilson’s mouth quirked in a brief smile at that, and he was gone. His footsteps seemed to cut off abruptly outside the ward doors, as if the soundproofing was excellent or - more likely - as if he’d lingered, waiting for something. (Someone.)

In the silence that followed, Rhodey seemed to want to look anywhere other than at Tony, his gaze finally settling on the child-sized bed and its sole occupant. “The Red Knight, huh?”

“Don’t start.”

“I’m just sayin’. You want me to leave you here for a bit?” His eyes darted to the door before he could help himself.

Tony managed a smile at that. _Oh, Rhodey. Why didn’t you just tell me? I would have understood._ No wonder Wilson was furious. No wonder he looked at Tony like _that_. It was the same look Tony saw in his own eyes when he looked in the mirror, after all; the one that said he knew what Tony had done, what he was responsible for. (If Tony knew Wilson at all - and he rather thought he did, at least in this - he wagered that he looked at himself in the mirror in exactly the same way.)

God, they were all such a fucking mess. 

(He _really_ needed to talk to Rhodey.)

He shook his head. Time enough to talk through it all later. “Go, before Wilson comes back to fight me for your honour. I’ll be fine.”

Rhodey nodded slowly, not fighting him on this even a token amount. 

_Oh, Rhodey,_ Tony thought again, and felt a pang of shame. Had he really been so wrapped up in his own mess that he hadn’t noticed at all?

“If you’re sure,” Rhodey said. “One of the orderlies will come to get you when we’re ready for the debrief, okay?” 

“... Sure.”

Rhodey hesitated another moment before patting Tony on the shoulder and wheeling himself out. 

Outside of the ward - clearly audible through the partly-open door - Tony could hear Wilson’s ragged exhale, and click of his footsteps beside the wheelchair. “You doing okay, Jim? How’re your stitches holding up?”

“I’m fine, stop fussing.”

“I want the doctor to take a look at you before we head down. I can’t believe you flew _commercial_ , your doctors are gonna murder me.”

“Sam, you have to quit worrying, I told you I’m fi-” The rest was too quiet, the words becoming inaudible as they moved out of earshot.

_Sam, huh._ Yeah, that pretty much laid to rest any doubt in Tony’s mind over what was going on there.

He’d fix it somehow, he thought desperately. Not this whole clusterfuck - maybe that was beyond his reach - but he could fix _this_. 

He rubbed his thumb gently over Steve’s hand, mindful of the catheter. “Come on, kid,” he whispered. “You need to wake up, now.” He bit his lip and reached for the same incentive he’d tried before. It wasn’t even a lie, really; he’d caught Wilson’s slip, earlier. “Your pal Bucky’s gonna come see you real soon, but you gotta be awake for that, okay? You gotta get better and wake up for me.”

He had an hour, right? He could wait until Barton or whoever came down to get him. It wasn’t like the kid had anyone else, after all. Sure, they’d get Barnes thawed out pretty quickly, but until then, Tony could stay here. What could it hurt?

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Galahad is known as the [Red Knight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Knight) in the Lancelot-Grail cycle. I liked the idea of little!Steve knowing his Arthurian mythology, and of course Tony only really offers his name once, when they first meet, when Steve is probably too frightened to really take it in.
> 
> I've tagged this as Sam/Rhodey background only, because this fic is through Tony's eyes so it wouldn't be the same level of focus/page time as the Steve / Tony main pairing. (Although I do love those two together, so I'm toying with later writing the companion piece to this where they get together.)
> 
> Yes, Bucky will be in this fic, it's taking longer than I thought to get all the pieces to where I need them to be, but rest assured he will be along shortly.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some references to child death.

_”I wish you didn’t have to go,” Steve murmured, his face hidden by the bedding. He had an arm slung loosely around Tony’s waist, pulling him back into the warmth of the covers. “Can’t it wait? Can’t you stay here instead?”_

_”Come on, Captain Responsibility, you know it doesn’t work like that.” Tony smiled at Steve a little sadly. “No one’s gonna wait on this. I have to face the music eventually.”_

_”No,” Steve said, emerging from under the covers. He still looked sleepy, but now he also looked pissed off. “No, that’s not fair. Why do you have to go?” His voice turned plaintive and strangely muffled, as if he was speaking from behind a mask._ “Why am I still here?”

Awareness returned abruptly.

He was in the hospital. His arms ached from where he’d fallen asleep on them by Steve’s bedside, still clad in his glamorous open-backed hospital gown. No one must have checked on Steve during Tony’s nap, or they would woken him, surely. And Steve -

“Oh, kiddo, come on,” Tony murmured, reaching out for Steve’s hand. “None of that, now.”

Steve sniffled as best he could behind the mask, his eyes wide and scared. “I thought it was a dream. I thought I’d wake up and I’d be home. But I’m still here!” His thin fingers gripped Tony’s anxiously. “I want to go _home_. I want my _mom_!” He raised his free hand to scrub at his eyes angrily.

 _Goddamit._ “I know, Steve. I wish I could fix it for you. But it’s gonna take a little while longer.” He reached out and carefully stroked Steve’s hair back from his face, so it wasn’t hanging in his eyes. “And in the meantime, you’ve been a bit ill, what with running around barefoot in that cold place, so we’re just giving you some medicine to make you all better. OK?” He didn’t know why he was asking. It was not OK at all, obviously; the poor kid must be scared out of his mind, and the hospital set-up was probably not helping.

The small hand squeezed Tony’s fingers tightly. “My chest hurts,” Steve said plaintively.

“...yeah.” He knew the nurses were keeping a close eye on the kid, so it wouldn’t be that they’d held back pain meds through neglect or to ration them. But, still, he’d speak to the doctor and see if there was anything else they could do. Tony was the one who’d screwed up, not getting him squared away quickly enough; the kid didn’t deserve to suffer because of it.

He cast about for something to say. “Hey, so, once you’re better, I bet you’ll be able to see your Bucky again. That’d be … something, right?” That was probably the kindest way he could put it.

Steve brightened visibly. “Bucky? He’s here?”

Unfortunately. “Yeah. He’s just… he was taking a bit of a nap, so they’re waking him up now to see you. Hopefully not too long.” He patted the kid’s hand. “And then you can stay with him while we figure out how to turn you back, OK?”

Steve looked conflicted, but finally nodded. “OK.” He bit his lip. Framed by the tight straps of the mask, his eyes looked swollen and scared. “You’ll stay until then, right?”

“I…” He coughed. “I have to go to a meeting in a little bit. But…” They’d said that they were waking up Barnes, right? “Your pal will likely be at the meeting as well. What say I bring him down with me afterwards?” He tapped the face mask. “Hopefully they’ll have mask off you by then, and you’ll be breathing more easily. Yeah?” And then Barnes could take over, and Tony could… He’d just...

Steve swallowed. “Yeah,” he whispered. “OK.”

*

Romanoff came to collected him about twenty minutes later. Tony hastily extricated himself from the suddenly frantic Steve - repeating his promise to come back straight after the meeting, and to bring Barnes with him - and followed her, hurriedly throwing on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt to replace his fetching open-backed gown. (The hospital didn’t kick up a fuss about him leaving, which just made him suspect that neither he nor Steve were technically registered. T’Challa would probably not want any paper trail of their visit.)

“Ready?” Romanoff asked, her hand on the conference room door.

 _A little late to be thinking of my comfort, Nat,_ Tony thought uncharitably. “Sure. Looking forward to it. Just like old times, right?”

She gave him a knowing look and pushed the door open.

Everyone’s conversations paused. On the far left of the room, Rhodey was hip to hip with Wilson, who had a hand on Rhodey’s arm, beseeching. Lang had paused in the act of bringing them both coffee. To the right of that little group, Barton and Vision were arguing about something with a scowling Maximoff, who was nervously fiddling with her metal bracelet. And in the far right corner, T’Challa was discussing something with Barnes, who looked remarkably thawed for a corpsicle. Despite having braced himself for the inevitability of running into Barnes, Tony couldn’t stop the prickle of dread creeping down his spine as Barnes turned and looked at him, his mouth a flat line. _I remember all of them._

“Just like old times,” Nat said into Tony’s ear, low and intimate. Her hand closed around his wrist, fingers surreptitiously pressed into the pulse point. “You OK?”

_He’s awake, that’s a good thing, you can just hand the kid over and you can leave; it’s a good thing he’s awake, it’s a good thing, a good thing, a good thing -_

“Absolutely,” Tony said, his throat dry. He couldn’t look away from where Barnes stood, healthy and whole - _and how, how the hell, who the hell made him a new arm, he was supposed to be contained, why would anyone -_ He couldn’t stop thinking about how small Steve was by comparison. Sure, he’d grab onto Barnes like a barnacle the moment the supersoldier was in sight, but was it the best plan? There was a reason Barnes was under; shouldn’t T’Challa have arranged for him to be made safe _before_ they gave him a new arm? _What if he relapses? What if -_ “It’s - hey, I guess there’s a briefing, right? Did we miss the briefing? We should probably, you know…” He managed to get himself to a chair without incident and slid mindlessly into it, not taking his eyes off Barnes.

Beside him, Romanoff gave a small sigh and took the chair to his right, reaching under the table to pat him on the thigh.

Tony couldn’t spare her a look, too busy staring down the silent Barnes. Maybe he could persuade T’Challa to assign some guards to accompany Barnes whenever he was with the kid. Just to be on the safe side. Just in case...

“Thank you for joining us, Dr Stark. I am pleased you are recovered. And I understand that Captain Rogers is also recovering well and is expected to be discharged from the PICU imminently.” There was a brief murmur of relief around the table at that; although not of surprise, Tony noted. Clearly the kiddification of Rogers had already made the rounds. “Agent Barton will lead this briefing - Agent, Barton, if you would -” T’Challa took the seat next to Romanoff and tapped at one of the tablets on the table. A screen rolled down the far wall and the lights dimmed slightly.

The rest of them eventually shuffled themselves into the seats around the wide conference table - Wilson taking one of the chairs away to give Rhodey room to wheel his chair next to Tony - and Barton stood at the front of the room. “OK, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, we have a major problem.” As he talked, the screen lit up with photos from the base’s storage room. “SHIELD’s old files were a little thin on ritual magic, but I've gone through what I could find and it’s pretty obvious that some sort of portal was opened up using magical means.” He didn’t need to elaborate; the photos pretty much spoke for themselves.

Having seen it in person didn’t make the images any easier to stomach. Tony looked away from the screen to where Rhodey was watching the slide-deck, his expression hard. The wheelchair was the same one he’d been using in the US, the one Tony had fiddled with a little; it was sleeker and more streamlined than the standard issue ones, and better cushioned for excellent lumbar support. The prototype of the braces Tony had designed was stashed underneath.  _He must have flown across with it..._

After a moment, Tony reached out and put his hand over Rhodey’s.

_Just like old times._

Only, not quite.

*

The briefing was mostly a rehash of stuff he already knew, with some added horrors thrown in. He’d already figured out that the likely scenario was that Rogers had interrupted the ritual killing, or had maybe not even reached the room before the whatever-it-was had happened. After all, other than being turned into a shrimp, he wasn’t injured. Unless the time pocket - or whatever it was - had healed him? It was a possibility, he supposed, but if that was the case, surely the time pocket would have healed the other soldiers as well? Unless…

Well, there were two equally gruesome possibilities.

Possibility one was that the ritual was designed to work best - or only - with kids, and so they’d been deliberately turned back, and then dispatched.

Possibility two was that the ritual wasn’t designed to kill them, per se, so they’d still been alive when the whatever-it-was - “I’ve decided that we’re going with ‘temporal event’, mostly because I’m the one that found it, so no, Barton, you can’t call it a fucking ‘time door’, this isn’t Doctor Who,” - did its thing and turned them back into kids. Rogers must have been close enough to be affected.

“But why didn’t it affect the non-organic matter?” Rhodey asked, frowning.

“It’s a Terminator portal,” Barton explained, wide-eyed and earnest. “My bet is that SkyNet is behind it all.” He’d grown more and more skittish as the slide show had flicked through from the wide shots through to the extreme close-ups on the cuts and the arrangement of the limbs. The last shot - a bloody handprint on the wall, as if someone had braced themselves against it, readying to walk through the empty space - lingered long after Tony closed his eyes. Barton had been making inappropriate jokes with increasing frequency throughout, and although once upon a time Tony would have been right there with him, that ship had sailed a long time ago.

Not when he still felt the echo of Steve’s small, frantic grip on his fingers.

Barton - the fucker - had probably slept like a baby while Tony and the kid were hooked up to IVs, Tony thought sourly, knowing that he was being unfair, that Barton and Lang were the ones likely to be the most affected by these images. But he had an annoyingly well-rested look on his face, and Tony... Tony wasn't in a charitable mood. He scrubbed a hand across his face, wincing at the stubble across his cheeks. “It’s not fucking SkyNet,” he said wearily. _Not after…_ He cut that thought off ruthlessly. _Trust Barton to go for the weak spot._ He scowled. He was done with apologising for Ultron, at least to his former team. It was pointless anyway; what would an apology even achieve? “We don’t know what kind of temporal event it is -”

“It’s totally SkyNet,” Barton muttered, sotto voce. “Steve is probably a reincarnated John Connor.” He smirked at Tony. “Hey, does that make you his mom?”

Barnes snorted, then suddenly looked panicked.

 _Jesus fucking Christ._  Tony's mouth was moving without any input from his brain. “Okay, how do you even -” he pointed an accusing finger. “Why is this a pop culture reference you’re familiar with? I was stuck with Captain _Wizard of Oz was the end of all good cinema_ and you’ve been thawed for three seconds and are already watching 90s sci-fi?” He could hear the shrillness in his voice, the forced levity. Barton was staring at him with a look of dawning horror on his face as he glanced between him and Barnes. Barnes was… not looking at him. But that was fine. It was _fine._ See him interact with Barnes? See? He was totally interacting. Nothing strange or strained here, nope.

Rhodey’s hand landed on his thigh under the table, squeezing gently. “Easy,” he murmured quietly.

There was an awkward pause while Barnes seemingly tried to make himself invisible through sheer force of will. Tony didn’t look away.

“I told him he should,” Barton said, butting in with that same wide-eyed, bushy-tailed, well-rested-and-eager-to-get-stuck-in, siryessir look. Romanoff was staring at him with a flat, thin-lipped look and he wilted a little under that stare before visibly perking back up. The fucker even bounced a little on his toes, drawing Tony’s attention away from the silent supersoldier in the textbook _look at me look at me look at ME_ distraction movement.

Tony _hated_ that fucking look. (He wore it better, okay? He was a _master_ of that look. It had pissed off both Obie and Fury in equal measure; Tony should have received a fucking _Oscar_ for that look.) And...

There were dead kids on the slide behind Barton’s head, for God’s sake. Sure, they’d been de-aged Hydra soldiers, but there were limits even to Tony’s sense of humour, and there was a surfeit of morbidity in the room already. OK, _maybe_ Barton hadn’t been making a cheap shot, and had just managed to fit his entire foot in his mouth. _Maybe_. If he was being charitable, Tony could ascribe his tendency to be a perpetual asshole to a lack of brain matter rather than active malice. (Or assholish impulses quickly tempered by bouts of conscience.) But no amount of forced levity was lifting the grimness in the room. Lang, for instance, had been grey-faced the entire time, visibly holding back the impulse to vomit. (And no, Tony really didn’t need to listen to Barton’s bonding sessions with Barnes to add to the roiling feeling in his own stomach. If Barton had been intending to distract him from his flailing stagger across their verbal minefield, he’d done a piss-poor job of it.)

“Peachy. Glad you found time for the important things,” he said, his voice cold. Rhodey’s grip on his knee increased - in warning? In support?

T’Challa cleared his throat noisily and Tony managed to snap his mouth shut over whatever else wanted to spill out.

“My advisers believe that the effect on Captain Rogers - and the sacrificed soldiers - was unintended. There are significant indicators that the pain of the soldiers was used to create a temporal event, as you describe it, Dr Stark.” He frowned, tapping his fingers on the table. “If the event was a door, then the soldiers were part of the doorframe. Captain Rogers was in the blast radius.”

“The wibbley wobbley timey wimey spilled over and caught the Hydra goons and Rogers in the backwash,” Barton translated for the benefit of any idiots in the room, still with that obnoxious, too-bright smile. His eyes were anxious when they flickered between Tony and Barnes.

Tony resisted the urge to rub his face. “OK. So, the change was an accident, that seems a reasonable assumption to make. So what the hell was the intention?”

No one had a reasonable answer to this. Vision floated a couple of ideas, primarily to do with temporal mechanics, and Romanoff wondered why the temporal event had gone down at the base in the first place - was it the location, or had the attacker needed anything specific that was there? (Of course, there was no footage of the attack itself - the security system had been disabled beforehand.) Wilson thought they should go over the intelligence that Rogers had used in the first place, in case he’d been drawn there by the same thing that had attracted the attacker. (This wasn’t unreasonable, and a small, mean part of Tony was pleased at how surprised Wilson looked when Tony said he agreed.)

Vision volunteered to re-review all the available data alongside Barton and see if there was anything that could be drawn out that wasn’t immediately apparent on their first pass.

“I will help,” Maximoff said after a moment. She hadn’t looked up from her clenched hands for the entire duration of the slide show. “If it was Hydra, I may recognise some of them. They may have been… it may have been someone from the programme.”

 _Dammit._ Tony hadn’t even _thought_ of that. Although, judging by the slow exhale Romanoff gave beside him, she’d been thinking it for some time. Tony quirked an eyebrow at her. _Glad you didn’t have to ask, huh._ That probably wouldn’t have made for a comfortable conversation. Well, then, it was a good thing that Maximoff was volunteering.

“I’ll check in with my contacts once I’m back in the US,” Tony said. “The residual radiation bears some resemblance to an Einstein-Rosen bridge, so Jane Foster may be useful here. I’ll talk to Hill, she has some pull with Dr Foster, she might be able to get her on board.”

Barton was looking at him oddly.

“What?” Tony snapped.

“Er… aren’t you forgetting something?”

 _Oh, for God’s sake._ “Barnes is thawed, Legolas. I’m sure he can keep an eye on the kidsicle until Maximoff or whoever figures out how to de-shrink him.” He waved a hand. “I told Steve I’d bring Barnes back with me after the meeting; I’ll hand the kid over then.” Steve had been anxious again when Tony had headed out with Romanoff, but Tony had settled him down pretty quickly, promising to only be a couple of hours.

And… look, he was never going to be Barnes’s biggest fan. Once the kid was gone and that asshole Rogers was back, things would be a lot simpler; he could be angry and hurt and assholish to both supersoldiers without any twinge of his conscience. But until then, the best solution would be to hand Steve over, and go and figure out how to turn him back.

He glanced at Barnes, side-eyed. Well. Maybe _after_ he checked with T’Challa’s med team that the Soldier was safe to be around. For all that Tony didn’t want to spend any more time with him than he needed to, he also didn’t feel entirely comfortable handing the kid over until he was certain that certain safeguards were in place. “If we’re done here, I suggest we go give the kid his beloved Bucky back, and make sure that we’ve figured out the baby-sitting. No offence, Barnes, but I’m gonna want to check what arrangements have been made to keep you under control so I don’t come back to find that you’ve turned the kid into part of the exhibit.” He waved a hand at the projection still on the screen. One small face stared blankly into the camera from the bottom-right corner, its eyes filmy-white.

Barnes flinched, but didn’t look up.

At the front of the room Barton just face-palmed. “Yeah, this is gonna go _great,_ ” he muttered.

*

“No! That’s not Bucky! It’s not Bucky, you _lied_!”

It... did not go great.

Tony was mildly disappointed that he still had the capacity to be surprised by how much the universe hated him.

Oh, Barnes had been given the all-clear - for a given definition of all-clear, which seemed to mean, _will not immediately turn into a mindless killing machine because we have this handy neuro-scrambler in case anyone gets any smart ideas_  - which meant that he’d be fine to be around the kid for the most part. T’Challa had also provided the services of a couple of the Dora Milaje - who were _terrifying_ \- as additional guarantees against Barnes losing it. So it was fine, it was dandy, it was _all set._

“You’re not Bucky!” Steve shrieked again, twisting on the bed and desperately trying to get away. Despite his accusations that Tony had lied, he was clawing at the IV catheter and the restraining bedclothes, doing his best to get across the bed and back into Tony’s arms.

On the other side of the room, flanked by the two Dora Milaje guards and a grim-looking Barton, Barnes was staring at Steve as if the kid had just stuck a knife in his gut.

 _We couldn’t even get one break?_ Tony thought, exhausted. He had no time to spare for Barnes’s feelings, not when the kid was in danger of doing himself an injury. “OK, that’s enough, no kicking!” He grabbed Steve by the wrists - mindful of the catheters, and the dislodged face mask - and hauled him up into his lap. “No more yelling, everything’s fine,” he said, drawing the trembling child into a hug. His hand automatically went to cup the back of Steve’s head as he flung himself into Tony’s embrace. If he closed his eyes, he could hear Jarvis’s quiet voice, gentling him through his nightmares. He pitched his voice low, aiming for that same quiet tone of parental reassurance. “That’s it, now. Everything’s fine. I’m here.”

“I don’t know who that man is,” Steve sobbed into Tony’s shoulder, tiny and heart-broken. “But he’s not Bucky. He’s not!”

With each word, Barnes’s expression crumpled a little more.

 _Maybe not,_ Tony thought, watching Barnes’s pain with a sort of clinical interest. _But, then, you’re not his Stevie, either, are you?_ His fingers stroked gently through the soft hair as he made quiet shushing sounds. _And you’re not my Steve. Not my Cap._ He looked down as the child gave one more large, hiccuping sob and abruptly quietened, all the fight draining out of him. _And I don’t know how I feel about that, either._ “OK,” he soothed, his movements slow and gentle. “It’s all OK, you don’t have to see him, I’m here.” Without thinking, he pressed his lips to the top of Steve’s head.

Barnes flinched again.

Across the room, Barton watched this all play out, expressionless. “I’ll get Nat to contact Hill and Jane Foster,” he said abruptly. “You’re… you need to stay here.” He turned to leave, tugging Barnes with him.

“Barton, wait!” Tony stood up again, Steve still trembling in his arms. As both Barton and Barnes turned to look at him, he faltered and swallowed. _This is such a bad idea…_ “Barnes should stay here,” he managed after a long moment. He addressed Barton, not quite able to make himself face the Soldier. “He should -”

But Barnes was shaking his head. “He doesn’t know me,” he croaked. “He… I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” He pushed past Barton blindly, almost running out of the door. The two Dora Milaje smartly followed, leaving Barton and Tony alone with the child.

Tony stared at the closed door, shifting Steve in his grip. The child had gone limp with relief the moment he was back in Tony’s arms, the exertion of his lunge across the bed exhausting him. He was visibly slipping into sleep, his breathing wet and pained-sounding. “Are you kidding me? I’m offering, and he -”

“He already had this fight with Steve,” Barton interrupted, folding his arms. He looked away and sighed, raising a hand to rub the back of his neck tiredly. “Look. It’s not my place. But… Barnes went back into cryo a couple of days after we arrived in Wakanda, before the rest of us left. Steve said…” His throat worked. He glanced at the child sprawled in Tony’s lap. “He said he’d said something to make him choose that. Had driven him away. Had… expected him to be his friend from childhood, and not respected the changes done to him, the life he’d lived.” Barton’s jaw was clenched. “He said Barnes had chosen to go under in part because he needed to not be in the same place as him.”

 _Bullshit._ “Yeah, well, Captain Spangles always knows how to make everything about himself, right? And they call _me_ the narcissist.” At Barton’s incredulous look, he shifted the kid in his arms, carefully arranging the mask back over the tiny face, still mutinous and exhausted in sleep. “Yeah, OK, he probably made a few false moves with Barnes, fine. But those two worked like a fucking unit back in Si-Siberia,” and he hoped to God that Barton hadn’t caught the stutter there, “and Barnes managed to snap out of Hydra’s best fucking programming at the sight of him, right? So no way did Barnes say that Rogers had driven him away; sorry, I don't buy it. That’s your saviour’s guilt complex at work.” He shrugged. “That’s the problem with having nice, clean moral absolutes your entire life; you meet one shade of grey and it beats you bloody.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe. But whether or not Barnes said it, Steve still obviously thinks it. And Barnes…” Barton chewed his lip. “Something went down between them, anyway.”

Which probably explained why Barnes had bolted at the first sign of rejection on the part of kid!Steve. Tony didn’t buy Rogers driving Barnes away, not when he’d burned his entire life on the pyre of getting even a fraction of him back. But Barnes could have run, sure, if he felt that he was in danger of being rejected. He looked down at the child in his arms. Maybe this version of Steve was too familiar to what Barnes remembered? _If he’s recovering parts of his memories…_ Then having a kid who looked like his BFF telling him that he wasn’t Bucky Barnes was probably going to do a number on him.

 _Ah, hell._ Dammit, Tony really didn’t want to feel sorry for the bastard. (And he didn’t. This was… it was just a twinge, that was all. Barnes got everything that was coming to him. But maybe… maybe something like this was… a bit much.) _Rogers is probably the only person he remembers from before Hydra,_ he thought. The odd, swooping feeling in his stomach got worse.

“I guess it must have come as a bit of a shock,” he said slowly, pushing past the taste of bile in his throat. “But anyway, if the murderbot won’t do it, then Maximoff or Romanoff can pick up the slack. I can go talk to Jane Foster.” He swallowed and reached for the rage that seemed constantly to hover nearby, ready to be accessed. “Because if Barnes can’t deal with a kid version of his BFF, I don’t see why you guys can’t pick up the slack. It’s not like Rogers would trust me if he was himself. I - it’s not my problem.” His grip on Steve tightened, belying his words.

Barton put up an eyebrow, looking irritated. “Are you finished? Because I actually had some stuff to discuss, if you're done with the useless hostility and cheap insinuations.”

“My institutions are _never_ cheap.” Tony glared. “But go on.” He moved to sit on the hospital bed, uncomfortably aware that he hadn’t let go of the kid. And that - more to the point - the kid hadn’t let go of him either, renewing his vice-like grip on Tony’s T-shirt, even in sleep. “You had a point?”

“I have a whole quiver of them.” Barton sighed and regarded the ceiling, hesitating. “You did well with him,” he said at last, grudgingly.

 _Talk about damning with faint praise,_ Tony thought, and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, keeping a seven year old alive was a great stretch of my abilities, Barton, thanks for the parenting award.” He looked down at the small face, almost dwarfed by the face mask. “And I nearly managed to screw that up, anyway,” he said petulantly, almost to himself.

Barton scowled. “I'd forgotten how much of a dick you can be,” he muttered, then pushed his way into Tony’s space alarmingly fast, crowding Tony back against the wall. His eyes tracked the way that Tony’s body twisted instinctively at the motion, pulling Steve away and putting Tony’s unprotected back between him and Barton. Something flickered across Barton’s face at that, and his expression softened. “You were _good_ with him,” he said slowly, enunciating each word as if speaking to an idiot. “He was frightened and injured and he didn't know who you were. You managed to get both of you to safety without frightening him.”

Tony felt the flush crawling up his neck. All he could think about was Steve’s tear-streaked face when he'd clung to Tony in his fever-induced delirium, as if he'd been drowning. “Yeah, well,” he muttered. “Kids are easy. All he wanted was to get back to his Bucky, anyway.” If only Tony had connected the dots, had realised that of course Steve would be expecting _his_ Bucky, the seven year old...

After a moment, Barton stepped away, shaking his head. “I don't know why I bother.” He shoved a finger in Tony’s face. “You didn't fuck it up so far. Just try to resist the urge to set anything on fire in the next few days, okay? We can handle the rest for a bit. The whole team is on this; all the two of you have to do is just sit tight.”

There was a weird expression on his face as he said it; if he didn't know better, Tony would have thought it _fond_. “He doesn't know me,” he said, finally, helplessly. “He's just grabbed on to the nearest adult. Once he's back to normal…” Rogers would put him through a wall for having witnessed him like this, Tony was fairly certain. Despite his protestations of complete transparency, Rogers had never been big on sharing even before Tony had realised he’d actively hidden the whole Winter Soldier fiasco.

Barton shrugged. “He pretty much grabbed on to you back when he was a super-soldier, too.”

“Yeah, and look how well _that_ turned out,” Tony muttered. His free hand rose to rub at his sternum unconsciously.

Barton’s eyes tracked the movement. His hand half-rose, the fingers twitching, as if he’d almost reached out then thought better of it. “Just sit tight,” he said instead. “We’ll figure it out.”

He moved away, his hand landing on Tony’s arm for a fleeting moment as he turned to leave.

Left alone with the exhausted, sleeping Steve passed out in his arms, Tony stared down at the small face cushioned against his chest. _This would have been a lot simpler if you weren’t as stubborn as a mule,_ he thought, then grimaced. _Oh, who am I kidding. You were probably dragged out rather than born, digging your heels in the whole way._

Steve didn’t seem to have anything to say to that, sniffling a little in his sleep and turning to tuck his damp face against Tony’s neck, oblivious to the drama he was causing.

After a moment, Tony’s arms tightened. “OK,” he whispered. “You win. I’ll stay.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, no one is having a particularly fun time at the moment. Don't worry, Bucky doesn't disappear for the duration of the fic. But Tony isn't going to be able to just hand Steve over and run away, either.
> 
> Clint... Clint is really not doing too well with seeing what was in that storage room, let's be honest. And he's _trying_ , he really is, but every time he opens his mouth, it just seems to be to fit another foot in there. (I like to think of him as subscribing to the 'fake it 'til you make it' philosophy of reconciliation.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: brief mentions of suicide.

Looking after a sickly kid in a secret bunker was not quite the same thing as looking after one in a royal palace.

“You will be staying here,” their guide - a tall woman who had introduced herself as Dhakiya - said, opening the doors to the room. “There are two bedrooms and a study to the right, and the kitchen and bathroom are through to the left.” She waited patiently while the porters carried through Tony’s meagre belongings (mostly his undersuit, and the few bits and pieces that Rhodey had brought him) and the small case that contained Steve’s change of clothes (his kid-sized clothes; his adult uniform had been spirited away by the time Tony had thought to ask). The Iron Man suit followed them, standing a discreet distance away. 

Tony looked around. He’d been hoping that there would be at least a little bit of tech in here so he could get a sneak peek at the famed Wakanda great leap forward, but there wasn’t even a TV in sight. The room was neatly furnished in pale colours, with a box of colourful-looking toys propped against the far wall. The large windows overlooked the gardens below, and a fan spun lazily overhead, stirring the humid air rhythmically. _What, you couldn’t spring for A/C?_ It was - it wasn’t quite what he’d been expecting, but it was fine. “It’s fine,” he said, then winced. He hadn’t quite meant to blurt that out. It sounded… well. “I - I mean, thank you. This is very generous.” That was marginally better, although still nowhere near the note he should have hit. Pepper was gonna have his head for squandering an opportunity to forge closer ties, et cetera, et cetera.

Dhakiya managed to hide her smile. “If you need anything, please just indicate on the request list here.” She handed him a sleek tablet. “It has a retina-lock which you can enable. I suggest you do not use it around the child overly much.” She nodded at the room. “His majesty was very specific about the furnishings. There should not be anything present which would disturb the child. I understand he is from an isolated area, and unfamiliar with modern technology.”

Well, maybe the events of the last few days were to blame for Tony not catching on more quickly. He felt himself flush. “Yes, of course,” he murmured. _Of course_ there wouldn’t be any visible tech, not if they wanted to make Steve feel comfortable. He’d taken pretty well to the Iron Man suit, but Tony still wasn’t entirely sure whether Steve had simply assumed that it was also a form of magic; certainly his reference to Galahad had raised a few eyebrows.

And they’d have to make some contingency plans, in case things were not resolved as swiftly as Tony hoped. Sure, he’d promised to Barton he’d look after Steve - _like a Faberge egg,_ he’d said, when Barton had stopped by to drop off some toiletries and a copy of all the footage and data they had; Barton had been less than amused - but looking after and _looking after_ were two very different things. And Tony was not going to put down roots here while the rest of the team(s?) went traipsing around the world to track down Dumbledore.

“You are literally the most annoying man on the planet,” Barton had said in exasperation. “Will you just - stay put for a _little while_? Just a few days? Nat’s got Jane Foster looking into it, and we’re all working the problem here. Let us get a lead sorted out before we argue over who goes haring after it.”

This had not been a terrible point, even if it _had_ been Barton making it.

Tony had resigned himself to staying put, and had notified Pepper that he’d be a few days. (OK, he’d told FRIDAY, who’d told Pepper. But sue him; he’d had enough on his plate without wanting to add being yelled at by his CEO to the list.)

“When will the child be arriving?” Dhakiya asked. “I understand that he is still at the hospital.”

“A couple of days, maybe less. It depends on his recovery,” Tony said vaguely. Steve had still been asleep when he’d left his bedside to get their stuff moved across and the data picked up. He inspected the tablet. It was a few millimetres thinner than the current Starkpad Air, and he ran his thumb along one sleek edge. “What’s the battery life on this thing? Is it commercially available? Can I buy one to go?” It was a little gauche to come out and ask if he could buy the thing, of course, but… well, he was obviously going to try to take it apart the moment he was out of the guide’s sight, but he’d feel a little better if he’d bought it, rather than dismantling a loan tablet.

The guide raised an eyebrow at him. “You may not purchase it,” she said severely, as if he had insulted her parents and spit in her food. “It is a _gift_ , from his majesty.” 

_Oh. Actually, maybe spitting in her food would have been the more diplomatic move._

“Um,” Tony said, trying to stop himself from turning bright red. “In that case - thank you for the kind gift?” 

She rolled her eyes at him. “There is another one packed with your things,” she said after a moment. “In case you are… bored.”

Well, that ought to cover any number of sins.

“Thank you,” Tony said again, putting the tablet down on the coffee table and offering his hand to shake. 

Goddammit, usually he was good at this.

Of course, usually _his_ was the most advanced tech in the room…

After Dhakiya left him to his own devices, Tony instructed the Iron Man suit to park itself in a corner and looked around the rooms. They were indeed as spacious, as neutral and as low-tech as they had first appeared. The kid could spend hours playing in here and not come across anything to confuse or upset him. The box of toys was similarly low-tech, including some board games, some Legos, playing cards and other things that Tony would charitably describe as ‘quaint’.

Not for the first time, Tony felt a pang of unease. It was one thing to deal with a hysterical child in the base, or even at the hospital. But here…

The two bedrooms were adjoining, one clearly intended for an adult, with a king-sized bed, and the other… not.

Tony stared at the child-sized bed - and the colourful Iron Man duvet cover - for a full minute before he managed to look away.

Well, he’d deal with that later. Tony had plenty on his plate before dealing with the trauma of the sleeping arrangements. And the fact that T’Challa - or whoever - had decided that because Steve had yet to freak out over the Iron Man suit, that meant it was ok to put the HUD faceplate on his fucking _duvet cover._

*

Back at the hospital, Steve was just as Tony had left him, carefully propped up on the pillows and the face mask and cannula back in place. Tony paused outside of the room for a moment, watching him sleep through the glass. _Come on, Rogers,_ he thought. _How about you show some of that famed stubbornness of yours and wake up?_ The doctors had told him that Steve should be safe to discharge in a day or so, as long as he was confined to his bed and taking his meds. His long bouts of sleeping - interspersed with some horrific-sounding hacking - had done nothing to persuade Tony of his supposed rapid rate of recovery.

(“He’s doing well,” the doctor had said, adjusting Steve’s IV catheter. “He’s responding to the medication, and all the sleep he’s enjoying is helping his recovery. You have nothing to worry about.”

Tony really hated doctors who said stuff like this. He was in the _PICU._ If he’d been dancing the tarantella and waving the flag, Tony would still be fucking petrified.)

“He was a runty kid, that’s for sure,” Wilson said from behind him, and Tony just about jumped a foot in the air.

“Jesus, don’t fucking _do_ that!”

“Sorry,” Wilson said, looking unrepentant. He nodded at the sleeping Steve. “So I hear you’re gonna be babysitting for a while.”

“Yeah,” Tony muttered, rubbing at his chest. “Barnes wasn’t the hit we were hoping he’d be. Guess he’s not as universally popular as Rogers had thought.” Barnes hadn’t been back since the ill-fated introduction. In retrospect, Tony should have probably primed Steve a little with how his bestest buddy ever was all grown up as well, but… _coulda woulda shoulda_ , he thought, irritable.

Wilson gave him a brittle look. “I don’t think that anyone was deluding themselves on that point,” he said. He looked at the still form on the bed, frowning uneasily. “Barnes was never really the issue here.”

 _Sure._ “Absolutely,” Tony agreed easily. He slid his hands in his pockets, turning his back to the window and leaning against the glass. “So, if it wasn’t about Barnes, what was it about, then? Just for my own edification.”

If looks could kill, Tony would likely be a smouldering pile right about now. “You know,” Wilson said, his voice tight, “you are so exactly like him. I don’t think I realised just how much before now.”

“Oh?”

“Tony? What are you - oh.” 

Tony turned, managing to paste a smile on his face just in time. “Hey, honey bear! What brings you down here?”

Rhodey looked between him and Wilson, his expression suddenly uncertain. “Am I interrupting?”

“Nope.” Wilson stepped away, his face suddenly bland. He reached down and pressed his hand against Rhodey’s shoulder. “I’ll see you back at reception when you’re done, okay?” He left before Rhodey could answer.

There was a short silence while Rhodey stared at Tony and Tony stared at his feet.

Tony caved first. “So, your boyfriend hates me.”

“He’s not my - really? _That’s_ what we’re talking about now?”

“He’s totally your boyfriend,” Tony muttered, folding his arms petulantly. He debated picking a different topic, but… well, Rhodey had come to him, after all. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I guess it _is_ what we’re talking about,” Rhodey muttered. He sighed. “Would you believe me if I said it had nothing to do with you?”

“No.”

“Well, it doesn’t.” He stared at his knees, reaching down to fiddle with the support on the left. Almost instinctively, Tony started to reach for him and Rhodey smacked his hand away. “It’s fine, leave it. And it _doesn’t_ have anything to do with you, okay?”

“My best friend is seeing someone and fails to mention it, and I’m not supposed to take it personally?” OK, so making it all about him was probably not the best move, but he was more or less grounded until they dug up a lead, unshrunk Steve and figured out what the bad guy’s next move was. Or who the bad guy was. Or what the fuck they wanted in Ossetia. Or anything at all, really.

God, Tony hated waiting.

“Rhodey,” he whined. “C’mon. Everyone’s acting so fucking weird, I’m starting to wonder if I’m not concussed.”

“A concussion would likely be an improvement,” Rhodey muttered. He leaned back in the chair, narrowing his eyes at Tony. “This is… not the best time for this conversation.”

Tony glanced over his shoulder, at the still-sleeping Steve. “Well, I don’t have anything else in my day-planner other than hanging around here. Did you have some urgent appointment?”

At that, Rhodey flushed a little. “Physio,” he said under his breath. “The flight was… not the best experience.”

Oh, _crap_. Tony was on his knees in an instant, leaning forward and pressing his hands in between Rhodey’s hips and the sides of the wheelchair to check the bandages. “Are you ok? Was there any damage during the flight?” Dammit, what was he thinking? He should have checked on Rhodey immediately!

“Ow, quit it!” Rhodey pinched at his fingers, hurriedly grabbing the wheels and positioning himself out of reach. “You - you really have to stop doing that,” he said. His voice sounded oddly strained. 

Tony blinked at him, still on his knees in the hospital hallway. “What?”

“That! The - the overcompensating.” Rhodey’s mouth was a thin line. He turned away abruptly. “Look, I need to get down to the physio anyway, why don’t you walk with me. We can talk on the way. I was… there was something I wanted to talk to you about, anyway.”

That didn’t sound ominous _at all._ “I - ok. Sure, Rhodey.” Tony climbed to his feet slowly. He cast one last look at the small, sleeping form on the bed before following Rhodey down the hallway, away from the PICU. 

The walk across the Bashenga Ward and through to the Outpatients Clinic was a pleasant one, through a little courtyard with a small fountain and benches positioned around it. The location was carefully thought out, the tall building the courtyard bordered giving it shade from the strong tropical sun and sheltering it from the stiff breeze that whistled overhead. 

Rhodey brought his wheelchair around to the nearest bench and hesitated. “Let’s pause here,” he said, not looking at Tony.

Taking the hint, Tony sat down on the bench. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out before he could stop himself. Rhodey’s eyes snapped up to meet his. “I’m sorry if I made it so that you couldn’t tell me things important to you. It’s… I’m sorry.”

Rhodey chewed his lower lip. He had his hands in his lap, clenched tight enough for the skin to be grey and thin on the knuckles. “I keep saying this,” he said hollowly. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

Tony swallowed down the instinctive protest. He reached out a hand and wrapped it around Rhodey’s, rubbing at the cold skin. “So tell me.”

He knew he was asking a lot. He was pretty awful at talking about important things himself; hell, he’d nearly died without mentioning any of it to Rhodey. But he liked to think that this was because he was a complete moron about emotional things, and not because it was everyone’s default state. (He _really_ hoped that he hadn’t been such a bad friend that Rhodey wouldn’t have wanted to confide in him, but he knew it wasn’t that simple. Rhodey had been with him through the worst times of Tony’s life, and he still hadn’t been able to bring himself to say anything about the palladium poisoning.)

“It’s not that easy.” After a moment, Rhodey looked at him and managed a smile. “You remember when I was in Iraq, the last time?” He asked.

Blinking a little at the non sequitur, Tony nodded. “That was eighteen months - no, closer to two years ago? With…” He couldn’t remember the unit. It had been one of Rhodey’s last deployments with the Air Force, before his assignment had been changed to base him firmly on US soil. Before he’d started taking Avengers missions, as well as War Machine ones. Rhodey had been one of the senior liaisons to the Iraqi government, supporting the joint taskforce moving against ISIL. He’d spent several months in Kurdistan, overseeing the US Air Force/ US Army / Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces and ensuring that the supplied equipment was used correctly. 

Rhodey nodded. “When I was in Erbil, yeah.” He chewed his lip again.

“Did… did something happen?” Rhodey hadn’t mentioned anything, and he’d seemed okay when he’d returned, there’d been nothing in the news either, but…

“No.” Rhodey shook his head. “Everything went like clockwork. The battle for Tikrit was… well, it’s rare enough to see anyone pleased to see you when you turn up wearing a US uniform overseas. To have so many so relieved…”

“Not keen on life under ISIS, probably,” Tony prompted gently. His thumb stroked gently over the back of Rhodey’s hand. 

“Probably not.” Rhodey was silent for a long while. Finally, he shrugged. “Anyway, everyone got back okay. It was fine. And seven months ago, one of the guys in my unit hung himself in his garage.”

He said it matter of factly, like he was completing a check-in, or a grocery list. _One of the guys in my unit hung himself in his garage._

Tony stared at him. Whatever he had prepared himself for - whatever atrocity Rhodey might have seen, whatever nightmare might have prompted this - it hadn’t been anything like _that_. “What?” He asked weakly. His voice sounded strange to his own ears, far away, as if it was being piped in from another room.

Rhodey shrugged again. He wouldn’t meet Tony’s eyes. “It happens,” he said. As if it was everyday. As if it was something that just… _happened._

Tony’s hand tightened over Rhodey’s. “Rhodey…” He didn’t know what to say.

Rhodey met his gaze with an effort for a moment before looking away again. “Sam put me in touch with some guys he knows,” he muttered. “I didn’t want to… there might have been a paper trail if I’d gone down the official route, and…”

And all of a sudden, the pieces fit together. (Goddammit, Tony wished they didn’t. Just _once._ ) Because it was one thing to seek counselling when not on active duty. It was another thing if you were deployed. And War Machine… War Machine was classified as active deployment.

 _They’d have pulled him,_ Tony thought through the sick feeling in his stomach. _The Air Force would have benched him, and the Avengers…_ What would Rogers have done? Maybe nothing. Maybe. Or maybe… 

So he’d gone to Wilson, who’d…

“He put you in touch with the VA counsellors?”

Rhodey nodded stiffly. “He was… the lack of mental health care was always a sore spot for him, you know? He was always so bitter about it. We always talk about how well we look after our forces and our veterans, but the reality is just…” He shrugged again. 

And so Rhodey had been forced to hide it, and Wilson had watched him hiding it, and… “That’s why he’s against the Accords?” He said, incredulous. “Because he’s pissed about how the US armed forces treat the troops and the vets?”

Rhodey’s smile was razor-thin. “Not just the US. Mental health services are never exactly high up on the list, and the US isn’t the only country that takes a view of a lot of mental health disorders as misconduct. If we’re under the same requirements, then -”

“- then you could be removed from the Avengers roster for seeking treatment,” Tony realised. His stomach sank. “Or even for having something on your medical record - oh, of all the -! Why didn’t he - for fuck’s sake! Why didn’t he just _tell_ me!” It was a rhetorical question. Of _course_ Wilson wasn’t going to fucking tell him, why the hell should he? If he’d thought that this was some political move, some deliberate move on the part of a few governments to stamp what they thought as ‘acceptable’ on the Avengers… Tony had always wondered how a fucking _vet_ could be against military and political oversight. _Guess I have my fucking answer._

Likely that wasn’t all of it - no way would Wilson go down that route so quickly for just a single reason - but it helped to contextualise things a little bit. Tony hadn’t even considered something like this. Had this been something that Rogers had been concerned about? But no, he hadn’t mentioned it, nothing even close to that. Surely if he’d been relaying Wilson’s concerns… no, Rogers had listed his own reservations, not Wilson’s.

God, no wonder Wilson had been willing to compromise. No wonder he’d tried to make a deal with Tony, tried to get them all to a non-violent solution. If this was one of his main objections… _Christ, this is fucked up._

Tony took a deep breath. He still wanted to ask about the relationship - because, nope, he was pretty certain he wasn’t wrong on that score - but there was a more pressing concern. “Are you - did he get you help? Did he listen?”

A jerky nod. “Yeah.”

Tony turned Rhodey’s hand over, so they were clasped. “Then that’s what matters.” The rest of it could wait.

They stayed in the courtyard for another few minutes, Tony holding Rhodey’s hand and not speaking, giving him space to compose himself. He desperately wanted to ask about the guy in Rhodey’s unit - what his name was, how close he’d been to Rhodey, whether Rhodey wanted to share anything - but it was obvious that he’d be prying. He settled for squeezing Rhodey’s hand tightly. “We’ll talk more a little later on, okay?” He said after a while. “I’m stuck here for a bit, what with the kid and all. And you - or do you need to head back?”

Rhodey shook his head. “A second flight so close isn’t advisable,” he said tightly. “I’ll stay put for a couple of weeks. Let the doctors here take a look. Do some more physio.”

And on that note… “Okay, then, let’s go meet your designated torturer.”

Rhodey had to let go of his hand to use the wheelchair. Tony left his hand on Rhodey’s shoulder instead.

He couldn’t remember the criteria for mandatory discharge in the Accords. Had mental health conditions been one of them? If that was the case, it’s possible that Tony himself would have faced problems, knowing his history. He couldn’t remember any explicit reference to it - he would have noticed if there had been, surely? - but maybe it was buried in some of the pseudo-military code sections. Not something that would have rung alarm bells for him, but something that would have tipped off Wilson.

And still, Rhodey had signed…

 _I’ll have to get the lawyers take a closer look at those sections,_ Tony thought with dismay. If Rhodey was able to function as War Machine - if he still wanted to - he’d be damned if he’d let some neanderthal machismo posturing on the part of anyone else get in his way. 

They reached the clinic reception area. Tony could see Wilson waiting patiently inside, a paperback open in his clasped hands. He hesitated. “I’m really glad he was there for you, Rhodey,” he said finally. “Even if he _does_ hate me.”

Rhodey smiled a little wanly. “He doesn’t hate you. He just doesn’t know you,” he said. “Once he figures out you’re just as big a mess as the rest of us, I’m sure he’ll love you.”

“Sure.” Tony nodded. _And pigs will fly._ He reached down and hugged Rhodey firmly. “Don’t let the physio get a free grope in when you’re not paying attention,” he said sternly. The doors opened behind him. “Wilson needs to guard your virtue.”

“I’d promise that his virtue is safe with me, but I’d be lying.” Wilson said flatly. His eyes flickered to Rhodey. “You ready?”

They moved into the clinic, Wilson taking up place behind Rhodey to give him a break from maneuvering the wheelchair. Tony watched them go, thinking. Hadn’t Wilson also lost a teammate previously? He seemed to recall something like that having happened. It had been in his file. Robert? Roger? Something like that.

Well… if it meant he’d take care of Rhodey, Tony wasn’t going to pretend to be anything other than relieved. He didn’t know Wilson, hadn’t spent any time with the man. Hadn’t even traded much in the way of pleasantries with him, before it all kicked off. He wasn’t going to lose any sleep over Wilson’s prior traumas, as long as they didn’t make things worse for Rhodey.

He was fast coming to realise that, when the chips were down and he had to make the hard choices, he also had an order of priority. And most of the Avengers? 

He looked at Rhodey’s retreating back.

They weren’t anywhere near the top of his list.

*

He took the long route back to the PICU, taking his time. The rest of the hospital looked pretty much like every hospital around the world, although the floors did look suspiciously clean. Tony was privately wondering whether Wakanda had mastered the art of forcefields, because there was no _dust_ anywhere, despite the automatic doors swooshing open periodically. Surely the wind outside would blow in plenty of debris? Where did it all go?

 _Robot vacuums_ he decided at last. He rounded the corner back to the PICU, pausing outside once again. Steve was still stretched out on the bed, tiny under the heavy hospital linen. After a minute or two, he went inside and took a seat by his bedside.

“So,” he said quietly, “it turns out I’ve screwed up even more than I thought I had. But I guess you knew that.” Steve didn’t seem to have much to say to that, his chest rising and falling in regular movements. 

Tony sighed. “I’m just gonna sit here and read for a bit. You wake up when you’re ready.” He opened up the briefing pack Barton had prepared for him, leaning back in his chair.

Barton found him like that, a couple of hours later, his head hanging low on his chest as he nodded off.

“Wake up,” Barton said, and Tony flailed awake again.

Goddammit, he _really_ hated it when Barton did that. “What? It’s only been a few hours. What the hell do you want?”

Barton looked grim. “We have something.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to figure out Wilson's reasoning on the Accords has been such a struggle, not least because I would have thought that - as he has a military background - he'd be in favour of oversight. The fact that he wasn't, combined with his direct experiences of how the US military treats mental health needs, made me think on this point. No, this isn't the reason why Wilson is pissed off at Tony, but it does explain why - at least in part - why his instinctive reaction to the Accords was "hell, no!" and why he tried to work out a way to compromise afterwards, once things turned south. 
> 
> RE: Rhodey... let's not kid around, if he was receiving treatment for mental health issues such as depression or PTSD, no one would clear him to be flying around a suit of armour with missiles all over it. The fact that Tony could do that as a civilian is another interesting perk of the US position on weapons control (but that's an argument for another day). 
> 
> RE: Tony's priority list - I get a bit frustrated with portrayals of the whole of the Avengers as being uniformly at the top. Tony is human, and he would have his favourites just like anyone else. If it came down to choosing between Sam and Rhodey, he wouldn't hesitate. *shrug* Learning to accept and manage those limits is pretty important if you're planning on leading people into battle, though.
> 
> Coming up next: Steve gets out of the PICU! Tony realises just what he's let himself in for! And we find out a little more about what's actually going on...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: mentions of child death and torture.

For one brief, brilliant moment, Tony considered not going. Just saying, _actually, you know what, I was there a few hours ago, so fuck you and your drip-feed of info,_ and… well, that’s where natural contrariness came unstuck. Because what could he do instead? Bother Rhodey at physio? Stay by the kid’s bedside and fret over his breathing?

Pretend there was an actual kid, and he had a right to be at his bedside?

He looked back down at the small form on the bed and swallowed hard, remembering the small bed with its Iron Man bed sheets and the box of toys left in the living room. Everything a growing child could want (and probably the least that could be expected a king’s hospitality). Wouldn’t Pepper have done the same if Tony had ever had Harley over to stay? Wouldn’t he have come back to the Tower to find a playroom made up, and meals arranged, and Harley’s mom’s number programmed into his speed-dial? 

T’Challa was doing what every good host would do for a child visitor. And Tony...

 _Everyone needs to stop pretending that this is an episode of the Brady Bunch and that the adorable kid in the hospital bed will find his Forever Family soon. And ‘everyone’ probably includes me._ There was no ‘probably’ about it. This version of Steve was equal parts small and unconscious, both of which were vast improvements over large and murderous, in Tony’s opinion. It was infinitely easier to spend his time here, watching over a child safely in the care of the best doctors in the world, than to face the people he had once called friends.

Not that he wanted the kid to be sick, of course. When he thought of him as a kid. When he thought of him as a kid, he wanted to go yell at his doctors about upping his meds, or getting him an extra blanket, or maybe arranging for some toys to be delivered to his bedside - not that T’Challa hadn’t already beaten him to that, but anyway. No, when he thought of Steve as a _kid_ , his hand small and still on the hospital linen, his face sufficiently similar so that Tony felt a pang of, _I know him, I know him and he’s hurt_ , in his chest…

Oh, he would have moved mountains if he’d had to.

But then, he’d already told Barton that kids were easy. 

With one last look at the bed, he fell into step with Barton as they left the room. Barton gave him the side-eye in silence for a moment; then, “you alright there? Get much sleep?”

Tony snorted, lengthening his stride. “I slept like a baby, Legolas. And the hospital has a lovely view. And the food is delicious. And I’m getting plenty of fibre. Anything else?”

Barton held up his hands. “Hey, man, you wanna sit in silence and stew on things, be my guest. Me, I’m just figured you could use someone in your corner on this.”

That brought Tony to a standstill. He turned on Barton, his expression furious. “In my corner?” he asked incredulously. “Fuck you, Barton, in what way are you ‘in my corner’? When you said all that crap about Rhodey? Or when you dropped everything and went running after Rogers when he crooked his little finger at you? Because from where I’m standing, that’s a long fucking way from being ‘in my corner’.”

“Yeah, fuck you, we’re not doing this now.” Barton grabbed Tony’s elbow, fingers pressing in on the nerves with unerring accuracy. Tony winced as he was dragged to Barton’s side, their walk through the hospital resuming with only the minimum amount of notice from the other patients they passed. “You wanna have this out, we do this later,” Barton said under his breath. “We get this all sorted and stop the fucker who’s killing those kids and sure, we’ll go down to the gym after it’s all put to bed and beat the living crap out of each other. But until we do that, until this is sorted, _I’m in your fucking corner,_ OK?” He shook Tony’s arm slightly to underscore his point, then let go. He forced a wide smile on his face. “Capisce?”

“Yeah, you’re a real prince,” Tony sneered, but he did not step away from Barton. Weirdly, Barton’s flash of rage made him feel a bit better to know that he was not the only one struggling with this. That he was not the only harbouring a grudge, or obsessing over things said weeks ago. Instead he matched his stride to Barton’s until they were almost marching shoulder to shoulder, both furious in their solidarity. 

*  
They reached the conference room before most of the others - who were presumably trickling in from other parts of the palace, so Tony didn’t know what their excuse was for being late - but the room wasn’t quite empty.

“Barnes,” Tony managed after a moment. Barton’s hand touched his elbow warningly. “Still awake?”

The woman on the other side of Barnes - Tony vaguely remembered seeing her somewhere, although he couldn’t immediately place her - snorted at this. “You think he is an ice cube? It is that easy to take him out of suspension and put him back in it with no effects?”

“Oh, I’m sorry if I gave the impression of caring about any effects,” Tony bit out and then winced at the kick Barton delivered to his shin. “If he’s not gonna help with the kid, what use is he?”

Barnes looked away and said nothing.

Despite himself, Tony felt a pang of regret at his blurted words. Howard had used ‘what use is he’ whenever Tony had fallen short of his expectations somehow, or whenever his mom had forbidden him to be involved in something she didn’t approve of. _He’s a child, he’s not supposed to be useful!_ His mom had said during one particularly angry argument, the words ringing long after the argument had ended.

 _What use is he?_ To a man who truly had no place in the world. Whose only use had been to kill people like Tony’s mom.

No, Tony wasn’t going to fucking apologise.

“You OK?” Rhodey murmured as he wheeled into the room and to Tony’s side, taking in the ridiculous stand-off. 

“Peachy.” Tony tore his eyes away from Barnes, who seemed to be trying to disappear into the corner, and looked down at Rhodey, forcing himself to turn away. “How was physio?”

Rhodey shrugged. “The same the world over, it turns out.” He looked across the room to where Wilson had busied himself fetching three cups of coffee. A small smile touched Rhodey’s face as he watched Wilson set a cup beside Tony’s papers. 

“Should I ask for a poison taster?” Tony said, then immediately regretted it when Rhodey looked at him, his smile dropping. “Sorry. Habit.” He’d have to watch that. He didn’t know or especially like Wilson, but if he was in Rhodey’s life now… he’d have to figure things out.

“Yeah. There’s a lot of that going around.” Rhodey wheeled himself back to the table, Tony following repentantly in his wake.

As they sat down, Wilson reached over a hand over Rhodey’s knee, not squeezing, not even looking at him for any length of time, just letting it rest there. After a moment, Rhodey settled his own hand over Wilson’s.

Tony looked away.

The others filtered in mostly individually, availing themselves of a coffee or juice on their way to a seat, Barton sitting down in the empty chair to Tony’s right. 

Romanoff took the spot at the front of the room once everyone was seated. 

“Is it your turn to play Miss, now?” Tony asked, unable to keep the bite out of his voice. Dammit, they’d already had one briefing, and he’d counted himself damned lucky that he’d been able to keep it all together. His temper had been fraying for a while; having everyone together again so soon after the last briefing was just asking for trouble. A part of him almost welcomed the inevitable bust-up; at least then he wouldn’t feel like he was waiting around for the other shoe to drop.

Romanoff raised an eyebrow at him. “I really have no interest in any schoolmarm fantasies you may have, Tony; that’s between you and your confessor,” she said crisply. She called up the screen again, and a world map came up with red dots picked out across it. One of the dots was on the location of the south Ossetia base. “I’ll be brief. We’ve had an unexpected breakthrough in the last few hours, which leads us to believe that this incident was not an isolated one. Similar events have occurred across six other locations over the last four weeks. There are indications that further events are forthcoming, and we therefore have a tight deadline on this.” She tapped at the screen and the locations flashed, a date appearing beside each of them.

Tony leaned forwards in his seat, brow furrowing. The first event was four weeks ago, in a village called Inari in Lapland. 

“Seven dead, all children, none of them known,” Romanoff noted. “The local law enforcement had a problem, because seven adults were also listed as missing. With a population of under six hundred, not many of them were on any sort of DNA database. One week later, the second event occurred.” Maloshuyka, Russia, flashed. “It’s slightly bigger, but still only a few thousand inhabitants, primarily employed by the railroad. Another seven dead, presumed victims of child trafficking. The missing men have a warrant out for their arrest.” The third location flashed. “Pudozh, eight days later, is when the connections started being made. It’s in the Republic of Karelia, which means that the Finns and Russians were both informed of the killings, and connected the dots. After that,” a case file flashed on screen, taking up the right-hand side, “Interpol opened up a file.”

Rhodey looked sceptical. “They didn’t have one open before?”

“The local authorities had no reason to suspect it was anything other than a local butcher. There were no demands, no message, no one claiming credit.” She shrugged. “Even Pudozh was a stroke of luck for us; it’s an administrative centre, and one of the dead happened to be overdue on a report. So the apologies for that got escalated and someone took notice.”

 _Ministers and angels,_ Tony thought, but did not say. An awful lot of the team’s success had hinged on blind luck in the past; he could only hope that it wouldn’t abruptly run short. He cleared his throat and tried to focus. “OK, so Interpol got into it. Then what?”

Romanoff tapped at the screen. “Attack number four was where things got interesting.” Everyone leaned forward at that one, staring at the little dot flashing over Moscow. “The Moscow attack resulted in twelve dead, and one survivor,” Romanoff said quietly. The image on the right changed from the Interpol case file to a video of a small blonde-haired boy, clearly in a hospital bed, talking quietly into the camera. “ _Eto byla zhenshchina_ ,” he said. His voice was thin and laboured. There was a plastic mask on straps around his neck, pulled away to one side so he could speak more clearly. “ _Ona ubila ikh. Ona ubila vsekh nas_.”

The image clicked off to silence.

Barnes spoke up slowly. “He said, _it was a woman. She killed them. She killed us all._ ” 

Tony whipped around to look at him, startled. (He’d been expecting Romanoff to translate.) _Of course._ Of course Barnes knew Russian.

At the front of the room, Romanoff gave a tight nod. “He also identified himself,” she said. “So that the Russian authorities - and Interpol - knew there was something strange happening, that the children had once been adults. Unfortunately, that was all the information they were able to gather.”

She didn’t need to say anything else. Tony had seen the state of the bodies in the storage room; he couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that sort of torture for very long, even if medical care had been immediate.

“The fifth attack was in Volgograd, another thirteen dead. The sixth was in Ossetia.” She tapped the screen, and a seventh dot appeared, hovering over Tajikistan. “The seventh was yesterday, in Dushanbe. Twenty three dead.” Images flashed through on the right-hand side: close-ups of the bodies of the victims, of the writing on the walls, of the limbs and entrails carefully arranged. 

Tony swallowed down the gorge that threatened to rise. Even having seen it once in the flesh did not prepare him for or inure him to the trauma in the images.

“They’re so _small_ ,” a quiet voice said to Tony’s right; Lang, on the far side of the room, looking green around the gills. “Why would anyone do that? Not just once, but...”

Tony cleared his throat, trying to get his thoughts in order. A few hours ago, they’d had nothing. This wasn’t something they’d found from reviewing the security footage leading up the attack. Where had the information come from? “And how is it that you just _happened_ to find all of this information?” Files, eyewitness video, a fucking _route-map_...

“Steve had it,” Romanoff said, confirming all of Tony’s suspicions. His breath huffed out of him. “He’d started looking at it around the fourth attack, when Interpol connected the dots and the Russian authorities started worrying they had a serial killer running around, gutting entire kindergarten classes. He might have thought -”

“He thought it was a Soldier,” Barnes said quietly.

Everyone turned to look at him at that. The woman on Barnes’s right tensed.

Tony could feel his mouth hanging open. “You _knew_?” Why was he even surprised? Why was he _fucking surprised_ , the two of them had done what they did best; hide the truth and squirrel it away and treat everyone like a _fucking idiot_ -

“No,” Barnes said, and Tony’s mouth closed with a sharp ‘click’. “He didn’t mention it to me. I went into cryo very soon after everyone arrived here. But - even before that, before he went to the Raft, I could see he was thinking about something. I knew that he was… he needed to leave, there was something he needed to do.” He glanced at Tony, something wry about his mouth. “Actually, I thought he was gonna go find you. Talk it out, you know. All that jazz.”

“‘Cause that worked _so_ well, the first time,” Tony said faintly. But, then - “hold on, if you didn’t know -”

“If being part of SHIELD accomplished nothing else,” Barton drawled, “it did teach our fearless leader the value of leaving copious records.”

Huh?

“He kept a diary,” Romanoff translated. “Or a casebook, actually. Written, and audio. He gathered it together with his observations. And his… thoughts.” She nodded at the screen. “I have extracted the mission-specific elements for us. The audio… I will share on a need to know basis.” She looked at Tony, her expression inscrutable. “Tony. I suggest listening to it all the way through.” It did not sound like a suggestion at all.

Hearing Steve’s voice again, not angry, not accusing… _I can do this all day._ Tony nodded tightly, not trusting himself to speak.

“Do we know why these rituals are being conducted?” T’Challa asked, his brow furrowing.

Romanoff shook her head. “The route they’re taking, and the impact on the victims, implies that someone is using them to power something, or to open something, in preparation for a larger event. But we are unclear as to what. And - it goes without saying - that we need to get ahead of the attacker. The attacks are escalating.”

The king nodded sharply. “Yes, we must intervene. Even if there is no larger goal, these attacks are unconscionable. And Interpol would be ill-equipped to handle a magic user.”

“Whereas we’re all set,” Tony cut in. “Your majesty, not to put too fine a point on things, but we had two team members who knew their way around a glowy object. One’s on another planet right now, and the other can’t leave your borders. That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence as to our ability to handle this - as Cap’s current state proves.”

“The Captain went in alone,” Vision said mildly. “And although I do not have magical powers per se, I believe that I may be able to provide some limited shielding from the radiation we have observed.” He looked down at the briefing packet in front of him. At his side, Maximoff shifted closer infinitesimally. “The most logical approach is to split into two teams,” Vision said, thoughtful. “One team to focus on the imminent threat, and the other to work on returning Captain Rogers to his adult state.”

Lang made a sceptical noise. “Sorry to butt in,” the guy really needed to quit apologising for his existence, Tony thought with exasperation, “but is unshrinking the Cap really the priority right now? Mr Stark seems to have a handle on things with him, and - well, whoever turned that base into an abattoir wasn’t kidding around. Don’t we need everyone on this?” 

It did not escape Tony’s notice that Lang’s version of ‘everyone’ did not include him. _Back atcha, bugbrain,_ he thought resentfully. He didn’t know the guy from Adam; no way was he folding him into the general spirit of _let’s all sing kumbaya and pretend things are hunky dory until we can find whoever has been gutting small children._

“That still splits us into two,” Romanoff noted. “Tony and Rhodey need to remain here, as do Wanda and Bucky. My suggestion is that everyone else,” she inclined her head towards T’Challa, “including you, your majesty, if you can spare the time, work on the bigger threat.”

“Or, I back you up, and Barton stays at home to mind the baby instead,” Tony cut in, scowling. He looked at Barton, quiet at his side. “You’ve been silent all through this. You change your mind about us holding hands and running off into the sunset to make daisy chains?”

Barton looked up from the briefing pack he’d pulled into his lap. As he slid it back onto the table, Tony caught a glimpse of the photo he’d been looking at and swallowed. It was a little brown-haired girl, Lila Barton’s age, lying in a pool of blood, her face turned away from the camera. _They’re so small,_ he thought, in unconscious echo of Lang’s earlier comments. All of a sudden, he was uncomfortably aware of how pale-faced Barton was.

“I think you need to stay here,” Barton said after a moment. “Steve needs someone around him he knows, and if someone attacks him here you’re his best chance of getting out alive. And…” his gaze slid over to Rhodey and away again. A faint pink tinge appeared in his cheeks. “And we had to come up with a reason for you to visit Wakanda that wouldn’t be questioned by Ross. So…”

Which was something that Tony had been wondering about himself. He could explain a few days away as a business meeting, but… “What exactly would explain me being out of the country for any length of - oh, you are kidding me! Rhodey, seriously? _This_ is why you flew over?” As a _cover_? Oh, he was gonna fucking _kill_ them. Rhodey had only been out of hospital for a few days; Tony would have bet all the money at his disposal that he’d been warned against flying for a while yet. No wonder Wilson had gone ballistic that he’d not only flown long distance, but flown _commercial_. Frankly, Tony was feeling a little sick at the thought himself.

“Well,” Rhodey said, smiling a little, “It’s not actually a lie. If anyone digs deep enough, all they'll get are my medical records.”

This was fucking ridiculous. The idea that he’d use his brother in this way… “I'm not gonna use you as a human shield!” _Not again, not ever again,_ he thought, desperate, and in his mind’s eye Rhodey was falling, was falling, was _falling_ -

“You're not.” Rhodey’s voice was sharp. “Tony, I love you, but you need to stop thinking your opinion is the deciding one, here. T’Challa explained the situation, and I agreed to come over. And yeah, I get a bonus medical consult with the brightest minds of the most advanced nation in the world as a side perk. Either one of those reasons would have been enough to guarantee my attendance. Both of them at the same time? It's a no-brainer, Tones.”

“Then it is decided,” T’Challa cut in. “Good. I will be glad to host both of you for as long as you need, Dr Stark, Colonel Rhodes. I believe that it is in Wakanda’s best interests if I involve myself for the hunt for this child-killer, so I will join the deployed team.” He waved a hand at the woman by Barnes’s side. “General Okoye will coordinate our efforts, and will ensure that events in Birnin Zana do not… escalate.”

Diplomatically put, Tony thought. T’Challa was hardly going to say, _I don’t trust you all to refrain from killing each other in my absence, so I’ve put my most badass general on babysitting duties._ The scary woman - General Okoye - surveyed them all with the air of someone who had taken their measure in the first few minutes of their acquaintance, and had found them all sadly lacking. “Charmed, I’m sure,” Tony’s mouth said without any input from his brain.

Barton’s hand landed on Tony’s knee and squeezed, not gently.

“We are grateful for your assistance, your majesty,” Romanoff said smoothly. “And yours, General.”

Okoye gave a stiff nod. “We are reviewing all security footage from all of the previous attacks,” she said. “Now that we know we are looking for a woman, one who has been at all sites, it may lead to visual identification.”

Maximoff piped up at that. “Unless they’re wearing a glamour.”

“Or a photostatic veil,” said Romanoff slowly.

Okoye shook her head. “Photostatic veils leave a trace signature on electronic equipment; we are compensating for it. We may not be able to see the face beneath, but we will b able to know if the image has been altered.”

“And a glamour?”

She hesitated. “That is currently beyond our abilities.”

Maximoff nodded to herself. “Then I will join those reviewing the footage. It may be that I can spot disturbances of that nature.”

Tony had managed to avoid talking to, at, or near Maximoff for the most part, but… “Shouldn’t you be working on a way to turn Rogers back?” That… was a bit blunter than he’d intended. “I mean, as our only magic user, your skills may be better placed there…” he trailed off. Maximoff was looking at him, her eyes wide. “What?”

“I…” She stopped, and visibly composed herself. “Yes. I will work with you.”

Oh. _Oh._

Dammit.

Barton’s death-grip on Tony’s knee had turned into a sort of approving pat, and Tony fought the urge to pull away. “Stop fondling me,” he muttered instead, and Barton gave a short laugh under his breath.

“So, it is settled. We shall depart imminently in that case. I suggest that everyone review Captain Rogers’s notes and observations, in case there is anything pertinent in there which we did not spot at first pass. Colonel Rhodes, I understand that there are some tests my physician wishes you to undertake, so if you could please contact him at your earlier convenience.” Rhodey gave a terse nod at that. T’Challa looked down at his tablet, ticking something off. “And Dr Stark, the PICU have contacted me to inform you that Captain Rogers is awake. There are some forms to fill in to allow him to be discharged into your care as your ward. Sergeant Barnes, General Okoye will be your primary contact for your safety and for the safety of those around you. Please do liaise with her in the first instance. Any other business before we proceed?” There were heads shaking around the table as everyone gathered their papers and tablets.

Which was all fine, except for one large problem that had just been slipped in there, sight unseen. “Wait, _wait_ , what the hell, _ward_? When did that happen? I wasn't aware I _had_ a ward. Are you confusing me with Batman again? Because flattering as that would be, I think I need to make it _very_ clear that I don't dress in tights for anyone.”

Rhodey coughed into his fist in a way that sounded awfully like, _MIT_. 

Tony glared and pointed a finger at him. “Once! It was _once_ , and there were extenuating circumstances.”

Barton looked up at that, like a shark scenting blood. “Oh, this should be good.”

“Can we get back to me and the Boy Wonder for a second and leave my teenaged experimentation as a topic for another time, please? I thought we were flying under the radar!”

“Captain Rogers is flying under the radar,” the king said, looking a bit bemused. “You are here on a personal visit. I cannot simply choose to leave a child in the extended care of anyone other than a family member, Dr Stark. There were certain safeguards that needed to be followed. But now that we have satisfied ourselves that it is appropriate to release Captain Rogers into your custody, we are able to proceed with discharging him from the PICU. I would have thought you’d be pleased; you have been most vocal in checking on his progress with the doctors.”

Yes, when he’d thought that it was just a question of the kid’s recovery! But truth be told, he hadn’t considered what an undocumented child would mean, and what ‘being in charge’ would entail. He’d had sort of vague idea of being around while Wakandan nannies and health care workers did the actual job of looking after the kid, at least until they could turn him back. He’d also assumed that they hadn’t been registered at the hospital, but obviously T’Challa disagreed with flying under the radar by burning all traces of his presence. No, he was instead drowning them in bureaucracy and protocol. _For a man who was willing to go against the entire Accords for the sake of a debt of honour, he sure does like his checks and balances._ Little wonder that there hadn’t been any serious move to get Barnes set-up with babysitting duties; in the event that the kid’s affections had been transferred, Tony had little doubt that T’Challa would have placed Steve with child services and arranged for carefully-supervised visits by the Soldier. In retrospect, possibly it was a smart move on the kid’s part to not attach himself to the one man who wouldn’t be allowed near him unsupervised. But that didn’t remove the immediate problem. “And what happens when Ross finds out that I have in my custody a seven year old Steve Rogers?”

T’Challa smiled a little. “He will not. Data protection is taken very seriously in Wakanda, and medical records have our highest protection. No one will be able to access them. And there is no reason for General Ross to suspect that the Captain is now a child.” He got to his feet; everyone automatically followed suit. “I believe we have planned for all eventualities, Dr Stark. On balance, this is the approach that will provide optimum results. Please do sign all the forms the Child Safeguarding Team provide, and I will leave to you, Sergeant Barnes and Ms Maximoff to decide on what approach to take to attempt re-aging the Captain. Colonel Rhodes, thank you again for your assistance. Everyone else - thank you all for coming, please be ready to depart in two hours.”

And that, it appeared, was that. T’Challa left, taking the scary general away with him, Barnes following with Maximoff at his heels. Presumably they’d be in contact later to arrange - oh _no_ \- whatever visiting hours, magical torture or other hideous activity Tony had agreed them to attempt with the kid. Who Tony as now in charge of. 

Legally.

“What just happened?” Tony asked, dazed.

Barton’s smile was razor-sharp. “Congratulations, it’s a boy!”

Well, _fuck._

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although I love "X is de-aged and left in the care of Y", I always wondered who got to make that decision. Like, sure, you can't just dump an undocumented child in the system and hope they're ok, but leaving them with someone who is frequently viewed as a bit of a disaster doesn't strike me as sensible either... *side-eyes all those "the team thinks Tony would fall apart if left a child to look after, so leave him a child to look after" fics* Wouldn't social services have a view? Wouldn't _someone_ think to do a DBS check? 
> 
> You'll be pleased to know that my vague idea of what the bad guys are up to is now a much more fleshed-out idea of dastardly deeds and evil shenanigans. Although still ridiculous. (And yet semi-canonical, all the same. Marvel, ilu.)
> 
> Yes, Tony, you did just agree to spend time with your two least-favourite people in the world, in order to help out someone you have very mixed feelings for. Congratulations on failing to think before speaking.
> 
> Don't fly after surgery, kids. Seriously, don't. (Yes, Sam is on the team going off to find the child-killer. No, this isn't a fun time for Sam or for Rhodey.)
> 
> Apologies if my Russian is off a little bit; please do correct me if so.
> 
> Next time: the reality of looking after a sickly child starts to sink in. And Tony realises that things are gonna get worse before they get better.


	8. Chapter 8

It had taken some time and a few false starts, but Tony had finally managed to acquire a useful reflex in times of extreme personal crises: stay calm, and call Pepper.

“This is such a bad idea.” Tony looked down at the papers and sighed. “Well, in for a penny, right?” 

“Tony, I’m really not sure you should do this,” Pepper said, her voice strained. Her hair was a messy halo around her head, falling to her shoulders in back-lit waves. She was still blinking sleep out of her eyes and shrugging into a dressing down as she sat down in front of the personal video screen.

Next to her, Happy was nodding vigorously, looking a little more awake but just as rumpled as he squished in next to her on the loveseat. There were pillow-creases on his cheek. “Boss, maybe you should put the brakes on a little bit. I mean, you already have two kids in the pipeline, you don’t need a third just yet. And not,” his nose wrinkled, “not one with that much baggage.”

Not for the first time during the call, Tony wondered whether it was a good idea to share what had happened outside of their immediate circle. But if the last few months - OK, years - had taught him anything, it was that secrets had a way of getting out, and that if you sat on them too long, they tended to blow up from underneath you. And Tony really, really didn’t want to find out what would happen if both teams (deployed and Wakanda-based) were somehow incapacitated; or, worse, if T’Challa was injured or killed. _You misplace one king via violent assassination, the nation mourns. You lose two, and it starts to ask what the hell the rest of the fucking world was doing while their leader was out risking his life._

Tony really, really hoped that someone was gonna have T’Challa’s back out there. Romanoff had laughed when he’d mentioned it, and raised an eyebrow at the woman by T’Challa’s side, who had apparently been inches away from a throw-down with her back in Berlin. Which… would have been a sight, no word of a lie. But he didn’t _know_ this Ayo, however much she might have impressed Romanoff. And he wished he trusted those who were going out there a little bit more, Vision’s presence notwithstanding.

(So he still had issues. So sue him.)

But anyway, if T’Challa was hurt or killed, or if the team didn’t come back, they might have to scramble back-up quickly, and out of the four who’d stayed behind, Tony was the only one who was one, mobile, and two, not likely to be shot at on sight by 117 nations. Which was why Romanoff had spoken with Hill, apparently - “yes, she’s talking to Jane Foster, expect contact in the next few hours -” but she was also assembling some sort of new!SHIELD back-up.

(Ask Tony how much he trusted that back-up, given everything. Go on, ask.)

So, yeah, he’d sent an encrypted data squirt via FRIDAY, and rousted Pep and Happy from bed. If something went catastrophically wrong, between them, they’d make sure things were taken care of. Themselves, the bots, the company and the staff, the kids and their families -

Maybe Steve wasn’t the only one with baggage.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Two kids - Hap, seriously. The first kid isn’t even mine, he just sort of… latched on. And kid number two is _also_ not mine, OK, he just, he -”

“Latched on?” Happy supplied helpfully. “They do that. By the way, he’s been texting every day. I’ve sent a summary to your tablet. He rescued a stray cat yesterday. And aced his Chemistry test.”

“Of course he aced Chem, he’s a good kid, he studies - just keep him on ice, OK, I’ve got my hands full a bit, and -” He just had to get this sorted, and then he could pick things up with Peter (who was old enough to hopefully not get killed in the meantime, and man alive was Tony ever grateful for the ‘training wheels’ protocol).

Pepper covered her face with her hands. “Tony. Tony, please think this through. This isn’t the same as playing the cool uncle with promising kids who have parents and guardians, OK?” She pulled her hands away and leaned forward, her expression determined. “There’s so much history there, and you - you’re not over it, I know you keep saying it’s all fine, but we can see that’s not the case. And this thing, it’s not the same thing as - as visiting with Harl and his mom, or building you-know-who his suit, or, or,” her hands sketched a shape in the air. “You know I’ll always back you, we both will, but this sort of thing, you can’t just walk away, you can’t change your mind -”

“Well, according to the papers, I can absolutely change my mind,” Tony said, flipping through the paperwork, pen in hand. “All I have to do is notify the court with sufficient notice for them to make alternate arrangements.” Not that he would. If he couldn’t cope, he’d just bring in help; he wasn’t signing the kid over to some _stranger_.

He closed the folder with a heavy ‘thump’ and set it to one side, bending over the tablet so that his face was almost entirely filling the video-screen. “But I get what you’re saying. I’m not rushing into it, Pep, I promise; I mean, technically others are rushing me into it - but that’s beside the point - but I just, I just -”

“You have to do this,” she finished sadly. “Tony. You know that’s not true, right? You don’t owe him anything. You can absolutely say no.”

“Boss. That goes from me as well. You don’t have to do this. Whatever you decide, we have your back on this.” Happy reached over and took her hand in both of his and Pepper shifted so that her shoulder was pressed against his; an army of two at his back, standing against the world.

Tony swallowed. He loved them more fiercely than he’d ever loved anyone in that moment, the feeling bright and hot in his chest. To know that, whatever he did, Pepper would always tell him if he was doing wrong, and Happy would always check that he was being safe, and that both of them would always, always take his side, no matter what…

He needed Rhodey; he loved Rhodey. But Rhodey was his own man, and Rhodey’s first and primary loyalty would always be to the country he served. That was good and right and proper, and Tony would never begrudge Rhodey choosing country over friendship or family, not even once. And yeah, if Rhodey did, if Rhodey were to do that… but Rhodey wouldn’t do that. He’d never do that. Rhodey would absolutely have his back, but Rhodey was a soldier, first and foremost. He put his country first.

Rhodey would tell him to lay down on the wire, if it came down to it, Tony had no hesitation over that. Rhodey would lay down his own life; hell, he’d already made the sacrifice play. Tony had no hesitation over following Rhodey’s orders into doing the same.

But Pep? Happy?

They’d never do it. They’d tell him to turn away and come home and _live_.

When Tony had been feeling particularly low - over the palladium, or dealing with his nightmares after New York - he’d sometimes wondered what his mother would have said to him, if she’d been around. Because the only voices around him had been those of soldiers, of those who put duty first. Of those who would sacrifice themselves and would sacrifice him, and would not hesitate. But Tony was not a soldier, and so he’d wondered. Would she have wept, but sent him on? Or would her instinct have been to tell him, _come home. Please, whatever else happens, please come home._

(There should always be one, Rhodey had told him, after he’d said goodbye to his own mother and shipped off for his first deployment. There should always be at least one person whose priority is not the mission, or the war, or the world, but you. Just you, and your safety, and having you come home at the end of the day. There should always be one person for whom you come first.)

And Tony… Tony had two.

“... Yeah, I know. But I… I have to do this.” There was really no choice at all. He had to. He _had_ to.

Because he’d hated Steve Rogers when he’d found him not a soldier or a hero, after all, but just a man, who’d put his family first. (Because Steve had lied, and said otherwise, and made Tony feel guilty and small for his own fears.)

Because he’d known that, whether or not Rhodey would have been able to order him to his death, Tony wouldn’t have had it in him to do the same. (Because he wasn’t a soldier; no, not at all.)

Because, as just a man, he didn’t have it in him to hand over a scared child _he knew_ to social services and let them place him with strangers. (Because the one man who might place the child’s safety above the world’s was the one man that Tony didn’t trust around a helpless child, _I remember all of them_ , no.)

Because whatever else Captain America might have done, Tony had thought of Steve Rogers as his friend once. (Even if it had not been mutual.)

And because this is what friends did. (No matter how much it hurt.)

After a long moment, Pepper nodded, her hand tightening over Happy’s. “I understand. Just - promise me you’ll be careful? And - if you need anything from us, if you need us to arrange anything -”

“I promise, Pep. I’m gonna be the most responsible I’ve ever been. And - no. I mean, I can still design from here, and it’s not gonna be long, I’m sure they’ll have him turned back soon. But, in the meantime, if you can keep an eye on, uh, you know who…”

Happy nodded seriously. “Don’t worry, boss. I’ll make sure he’s OK. And if this thing drags on, if you have to bring him back with you -”

Oh, god, it didn’t bear thinking about. Looking after a kid version of Steve was one thing; having to deal with there being no resolution to all that had gone down between them…

Maybe he should have a go at mentally compartmentalising this whole episode as ‘Steve’s hypothetical kid’, rather than ‘Steve as a kid’. It was a long shot, but it might minimise the chances of Tony screaming at the poor kid for something his adult self had done. (Not that this scenario had been tumbling over and over in his head on repeat ever since T’Challa had dropped his little bombshell, not at all.)

“- just let us know, OK? We’ll sort it out.”

“Thanks,” Tony said faintly, feeling his stomach roil. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. So, uh, send me whatever it is I can work on remotely, and I’ll see about taking a few meetings here; someone built my least-favourite person a new toy, so I really wanna meet whoever was able to whip one up -”

“- and poach them?” Pep smiled, finally. It didn’t reach her eyes.

“- and poach them, yes, Obi-Wan, you have taught me well the ways of your corporate dominion. I will do my very best to bring back the Wakandan version of me. Or at least arrange a collaboration of some sort.” Because he very much doubted he’d be able to tempt them away from the most advanced facilities on Earth. But maybe if he threw in access to some of the scavenged Chitauri tech as a sweetener?

“Alright. Well, tell Rhodey we said hello. And call at least once a week, OK? None of that making FRIDAY do it.”

“Sure,” Tony said, lying and not feeling even a little guilty about it. He had the kid, the magic de-aging doohikey, Rhodey’s treatment, his own R&D backlog, trying to get access to whoever had thought building Barnes a new murder-arm was a good idea… phone calls home were not gonna be top of the priority list. “Once a week, scout’s honour. Sorry again for waking you guys, go back to bed now, night night!”

“Tony -”

He cut the connection. Looked down at the papers.

_Please don’t let this blow up in our faces._

The pen felt heavy in his hand.

*

Steve was awake and dressed by the time Tony went to collect him, the stack of signed papers from the Family Court of Birnin Zana releasing one Steven Grant Rogers into his temporary custody tucked under one arm, and Rhodey hovering near the door.

 _Oh, very funny._ Some joker - Tony was starting to suspect Barton’s hand in all this, and the bastard was lucky that he’d scarpered - had put the kid in an Iron Man T-shirt, tiny little baby khakis, and even tinier Converse sneakers. With more Iron Man on them. _What, the bed sheets weren’t enough?_

“Wow, that’s a lot of… red.” It looked like someone had bled Avengers all over the kid.

Steve looked up from examining his new sneakers, with their red base, gold laces and triumphant Iron Man motifs. “My shoes have your armour on them,” he said solemnly. He still had a rasp to his voice, and the mask was hanging loosely on an adjustable strap around his neck, but at least the nebuliser had been switched out to a portable one in the form of a kid-sized backpack. Someone had clearly given him a bath before getting him all ready because he was clean and his hair had been neatly combed to one side.

Tony wondered briefly why all the medical technology wasn’t freaking him out. Well, either he just wasn’t as susceptible to panic attacks over modern technology as had first been assumed, or the medical tech had freaked him out enough when he’d been even younger and he’d become inured to it. He reached out and touched the mask around Steve’s neck. “That they do, kiddo. You OK with this thing? Know how to use it?”

Steve nodded and demonstrated putting the mask up. “I used one when I got real sick once and mom took me to the doctor. I put it over my face and breathe real hard, and then medicine gets in me.”

Well, that answered that. Tony briefly wondered what ‘real sick’ constituted, but then decided he didn’t really want to know.

He got down on one knee so he was facing the kid face-on. “OK, kid, I wanna be straight with you here. I’m not sure how much the doctor told you. Obviously, until we figure out how to turn you back into an adult, we can’t leave you on your own, you need someone to be in charge of you.”

The kid nodded seriously, then something very much like fear crossed his face. “But - I can stay with you, right? You can look after me? Until - until I’m grown again?” His voice trembled.

Well, clearly Rogers had been a bad judge of character since infancy, Tony decided. Although given that the only other person he’d properly met so far had been Barton, maybe it was just that Tony was less shit by comparison; who knew. He settled on a sharp nod. “Yeah, Steve. I can look after you.” He hoped. Actually, he was rather counting on getting some help on that front, because he wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to do with a kid while he worked. The court official who’d accompanied the doctor had explained that he was now in charge of the kid, and that he wasn’t allowed to do anything major without the court’s consent. And he absolutely wasn’t allowed to remove the child from Wakanda without prior permission. (Well, that was a bridge they could burn if it they ever came to it.) That the child in question wasn’t Wakandan seemed to be neither here nor there; as far as the court official was concerned, Steve was staying put until the court said otherwise, or until they figured out how to unshrink him. (That last bit was Tony’s extrapolation, and he hoped to God that T’Challa would be able to make the wardship go away once Rogers was back, because otherwise… well, it didn’t bear thinking about.)

First things first, he’d have to get the kid settled in. Tony plucked at the thin red material of the T-shirt and made a face. “And we’ll get you something else to wear.” Something a little warmer. And less… weird.

“No, that’s OK,” Steve said quickly and hugged his arms across his chest, then seemed to think better of it, deflating. “Oh, I meant… I mean, I can wear the big shirt again, I’ll give it back, sorry.” He reached for the hem of the T-shirt immediately.

That’s… not what he’d meant at all. _Fucking hell._ Tony reached out and grabbed hold of the little hands, holding them against Steve’s side. “I just meant, we can get you something you’d like,” he said, forcing a little bit of gentleness into his voice. “But you don’t have to give this back, it’s yours as well.” Of course Steve would assume the clothes were a loan, the kid had grown up underfed and sickly, raised by a single mother with limited means. Doctors were only when someone got ‘real sick’. “We can get you anything you’d like.” He let go, then patted Steve’s shoulder cautiously.

The kid looked at him through narrowed eyes, then seemed to relax. “That’s OK, I’m OK.” He looked back down at his sneakers and edged the tip of his right one over his left, making the Iron Men bump extended fists, mid-flight. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“I think we should get him the action figures,” Rhodey said, watching the interaction with no small measure of amusement from the far side of the room. “Or maybe the plush toys.”

Tony turned around and glared. “You will _not._ ” God, he hoped not.

Rhodey’s smile, if anything, got wider.

*

Getting him back to the suite was a bit of a problem. If they put him in the wheelchair, he’d be able to see pretty much all of the hospital on his way out. But the hospital - like all hospitals - wouldn’t let him walk, in case he split his head open on his way out or something. Rhodey had even offered to have him in his lap (absolutely out of the question; God alone knew what that sort of weight jostling his pelvis would do when he was so soon out of hospital) and Steve had insisted that he could absolutely walk, he was feeling better, he could do it, and then Tony lost what little patience he’d had to start with and picked him up again.

Rhodey stopped speaking, his mouth hanging open.

“What?” Tony asked defensively, adjusting his grip. Steve’s arms automatically wrapped around Tony’s neck as the hold was corrected, settling him against Tony’s hip more comfortably, sneakered feet kicking gleefully. Tony was painfully aware that Rhodey hadn’t been there when he’d arrived with the spy twins and the kid, and that this was possibly the first time he’d seen them interact. “This is easiest.”

Rhodey closed his mouth and mimed a zipper over his lips.

Steve’s breath huffed out against Tony’s cheek as he giggled.

“Oh, shut up, Rhodey,” Tony said, irritable. “Don’t you even start.”

“He zipped up his lips!”” Steve explained a little breathlessly in Tony’s ear, evidently having been born with the ‘honourable defence’ instinct. “He’s not speaking, he zipped them up!”

“He’s _thinking_ it,” Tony muttered.

Dhakiya chose that moment to enter the room, smiling to see the kid up and about. “May I interrupt?”

“Please,” Tony said gratefully, and awkwardly shook her hand. “Er - Dhakiya, this is Jim Rhodes, War Machine. Rhodey, Dhakiya, the king’s… fixer?” He was fairly certain that ‘tour guide’ was probably wrong.

Her smile got a little wider. “A pleasure to meet you, Colonel. Dr Stark, if you and your ward are ready, I will escort you to your quarters.”

Yeah, OK. She was either with their equivalent of the State Department, or part of the security detail the General had been briefing, earlier. Because, OK, she might have recognised Rhodey as Colonel Rhodes, fine, but she also knew that the kid with Tony was a ward of the court, not Tony’s own. Which was… interesting. “Is fixer not correct?” He asked pleasantly, falling into step with her, Rhodey on his other side.

Her smile did not flicker. “It is close enough, yes.”

Ah, yes. Well, that answered a few things.

Steve hid his face against Tony’s neck as they walked, his eyes peeking out over Tony’s shoulder to peer at the woman.

“Hello, Steve,” Dhakiya said, her eyes flicking to him.

Steve ducked down again.

She did not seem overly bothered by it. “They are shy at that age.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Tony muttered. He noted how closely Dhakiya was sticking to him, and the hospital porter that seemed to be following them a few steps back.

The walk seemed to take _forever._

“I feel like this is a good practice run,” Rhodey said, that same shit-eating grin on his face. “You know, when one of those paternity suits inevitably hits paydirt.”

Tony covered Steve’s ears with one hand, tucking his head against Tony’s shoulder. “I’m glad that my extreme mental trauma is amusing for you. Anything else you want to poke fun at?”

Rhodey considered, watching Steve half-dozing against Tony’s shoulder, limp and compliant in his grip. “Nope, I think I’m good. I’ll wait until he’s been turned back for the rest of it.”

“Oh, good, something to look forward to,” Tony muttered.

Steve mumbled something inaudible into his neck in response.

*

When they got to the suite, on the desk in the little study was a sealed box, coded to his thumbprint. "Agent Romanoff has left a copy of the files with you," Dhakiya said. "She said that the audio recording was in there, and that you should listen to it when you were alone." She looked at the child in Tony's arms. "I can put him to bed, if you'd like to listen to it now."

Tony stood frozen, staring at the box. Then, "no," he said decisively, moving past her and a supremely unsurprised-looking Rhodey, Steve held firmly in his arms. "I'm in charge of him. I'll do it."

Whatever Rogers wanted to say could wait. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I went down the Pep/Happy route. (Only way I could square this away with Homecoming, really.) Hap's benignly tolerant of the strays that Tony collects, but that doesn't mean he thinks it's a good idea for Tony to become so invested in other people's kids. Or vice versa, to be honest. And this scenario? Yeah, even worse.
> 
> RE: Rhodey, soldiers, Pep/Happy, priorities... Tony is very much not a soldier. And Steve is very much one. So when Steve chooses to put his family before his country (before - in Tony's view - justice), that's a major kick in the teeth to how Steve has portrayed himself to others in the past, especially Tony. I'm 100% sure that Tony would follow orders that he knows he wouldn't survive, as evidenced by New York. I'm also 100% sure that he wouldn't be able to give those orders to someone else. Maybe that changes further down the line, but to my mind, where he is at that point, that's not a thing he'd be able to do. So, while he acknowledges that he is not a soldier, and the other civilians are not soldiers, I think he has come to realise that there _are_ soldiers on the team. People that can make that call for him. So that betrayal... it feels personal in a variety of ways.
> 
> (No, that's not all of it; there's a lot in there to unpack. But plenty of time for all that angst to be slowly unpacked, eh?)
> 
> RE: Black Panther - I already have a vague outline of what I need to happen in this fic, but the part-by-part summaries are not pinned down, yet. So some elements from BP I will doubtless weave in if it's possible to do so, but some parts will likely not work and I'll have to ignore them. (Yes, I'm going to see Black Panther tomorrow. So excited!)
> 
> Next time - efforts kick off on multiple fronts on the de-magicking plans, the deployed group gets a chance to see first-hand what's going on, and Rhodey really hates physio.


	9. Chapter 9

Dhakiya excused herself after Tony and Rhodey had lunch delivered; evidently her babysitting duties did not extend to taking her meals with them. It was either that, or she had better things to do, which was clearly crazy talk. Tony had _some_ standards to maintain, and he’d done a fair job of complimenting her on her terrifying attributes, which seemed to both go over well and make her rather amused. (Always charm your hosts, especially if they looked like they could break you in two without breaking a sweat. Tony had always had a thing for frightening capable women, and even though Dhakiya had shown little to no interest, it surely didn’t hurt to be friendly.)

“Does he always behave like this?” She asked Rhodey on her way out, raising an eyebrow at Tony’s offer to walk her back to her… base? Quad? Wherever it was she lay down her weapons, anyway. 

“Believe it or not, this is him after much remedial work,” Rhodey said apologetically. “It’s an ongoing project.”

“Hey! Just because you’re taken doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t flirt,” Tony said crossly. He smiled at Dhakiya. “So, raincheck on the walk? I’d love to see a bit more of Birnin Zana.” Especially the labs of whoever had come up with Barnes’s new arm.

Dhakiya laughed, dimpling at him in genuine amusement. “You are charming, Dr Stark, I will admit. But not my type.” She shrugged one bare shoulder. “Besides. I think you have other… priorities right now.”

On cue, the baby monitor hooked up to Steve’s room lit up with his coughs.

Tony held up a finger. “Hold that thought.” 

He left Rhodey to make small-talk and hurried back into the sleeping area. Steve had managed a couple of hours of sleep, and his meds must be about due in any case.

“Hey, kiddo. How are you doing?” He asked softly, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

Steve blinked up at him, sweaty and miserable. “My chest hurts,” he whimpered, rubbing at his eyes with his fists.

Tony patted his shoulder. “I know. I think we should get a bit more medicine in you and that’ll help, yeah?” He measured out the syrupy substance into the little spoon on the night-table and coaxed Steve into a sitting position so he could take it more easily. “How’s that?” He asked, trying not to laugh at the face Steve pulled.

“Yucky,” the kid managed, taking a quick sip of his water and then flopping back down again.

“Yeah.” However advanced Wakanda might be, drug delivery mechanisms hadn’t changed much in several hundred years and they still stuck to the tried and tested oral, intravenous, or gaseous routes (no magical Star Trek wand-waving). If Steve was down to the oral option of syrupy mixtures, it was a good sign the IV were hopefully behind them. Tony glanced down at the face mask propped on the pillow and carefully positioned it so it was easily accessible. “Have you used the mask yet?”

“N-no.” He scrunched up his face. “I’m OK.”

“Yeah, right.” He moved so that he was sat against the headboard, pulling the kid up to lean against his chest and sliding the mask over his face. “Let’s have a few big breaths and get those lungs nice and open.”

The kid obediently breathed deeply for him, coughing a little but otherwise sounding OK. God, Tony hoped that was the case; the last he needed was for Steve to relapse. 

After a few minutes, Steve dropped the face mask. 

Tony twisted to peer down at his face. “Better?”

Steve nodded, still looking pretty miserable.

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake._ Honestly, he didn’t know which version of Steve was more squirrelly - the older version with everything that affected those around him, or this version and his health. He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “What’s wrong, kid? I can’t make it better unless you tell me.”

The kid’s face went smooth and blank. “Nothing,” he said quietly. “I’m good.”

 _Fuck._ Tony knew that look; had faced it across conference rooms and training rinks. He had less than a rat’s ass chance in hell of getting anything useful out of Steve once their esteemed leader was in that mood, and he doubted that the kid would be any more cooperative. He hesitated for another moment, trying to figure out what he could say, but in the end it was a lost cause. “OK, well… I’m just down the hall if you need me,” he said and patted Steve’s shoulder again. He slid out of the bed and eased the kid back down on the pillows, fluffing them behind him a little to give him a little bit more elevation for his chest. “Just - just call if you need something,” he said finally, lost.

Steve stared back at him, his eyes wide and wet, and nodded solemnly. 

_I’m an idiot,_ Tony thought, and fled. _I can’t even keep a kid sorted-_

“How’s he doing?” Rhodey asked from his position on the floor.

Tony looked at him, surprised. “What are you doing? And where did Dhakiya go?”

“Probably off to go do whatever it is super-spies do when they’re not babysitting Americans,” Rhodey said. He had positioned himself in the standard ‘stretch’ pose - legs crossed, torso level, arms stretched out on the floor - and was balancing himself with his elbows on the outside of his knees. “I didn’t get the impression that managing us was a stretch of her abilities.”

“I’m fairly sure she’s part of the king’s bodyguard,” Tony said absently. Not that Tony minded having someone nearby who could put Barnes down, by any means. The suit was a silent statue in the corner, and although he wore his repulsor watch, it would be a poor defence if Barnes were to snap and go after the kid. No, better to have someone here purely for defence. “Are you sure you should be doing that?” Even from this vantage point he could tell that Rhodey’s positioning was putting a lot of pressure on his lower back. Why would he do something like that?

“I’m supposed to do this stretch three times a day,” Rhodey said, his voice little more than a pained grunt. “The physio said -”

“Yeah, but they probably thought you’d have someone spotting your form or something.” Tony sat down behind him, his legs spread wide on either side of Rhodey’s Buddha position. He eased Rhodey up then carefully adjusted Rhodey’s hips so that he was sitting evenly and his back was straight. “OK, try it now.” 

Rhodey eased himself back down for a minute, then back up again. “Yeah, that’s… thanks, that’s better.” He sounded surprised. (He still hadn’t turned to face Tony.)

Which… no. “Rhodey, have you had someone spotting you when you’ve been doing these? Back in the US, I mean?” He had a bad feeling about this. Wilson wouldn’t have let Rhodey’s form get this disorderly; no fucking way. And the physio would observe and correct during the sessions, but if Rhodey couldn’t feel what was happening to his hips below a certain point, he’d have no way of knowing his alignment was off when he was doing his exercises at home. Wherever ‘home’ was. (Wilson’s place? Andrews base? He still didn’t have a straight answer.)

Instead of answering, Rhodey eased himself back down again, letting his upper body weight stretch him out. 

Tony rested a hand in the centre of Rhodey’s back, watching his T-shirt ride up to reveal his spine. The bandages had come off - thank god - but the surgery scars were still red and raised across his skin. Tony traced his fingers gently alongside one, not touching the skin, just… committing it to memory.

“I don’t want Sam helping me with physio,” Rhodey said on the exhale. He stretched his fingers as far as he could, every muscle on his back jumping. “He does everything else, and it’s too much. I don’t… I don’t want that.”

It would have been better to argue. Better to say that Wilson’s feelings were irrelevant next to Rhodey’s. Better to say that Wilson had plenty to feel guilty about, and that helping Rhodey with his physio would probably help address some of that. “He’s not taking it well, huh,” Tony said instead, watching Rhodey slowly straight up again.

Another exhale. “He’s having flashbacks,” Rhodey said, very quietly. “He doesn’t… he can’t sleep from them. His whole day is already tied up with me, and with Rogers, and with everything else. I don’t want him to…. He doesn’t have the space to…” He couldn’t seem to find the words to finish his sentence, instead sinking back down into another stretch.

 _I know,_ Tony thought, aching. _I’m here._ He rested his hands against Rhodey’s back, feeling the smooth movement of his ribs and spine, and said nothing.

*

The chime at the door came a couple of hours later, after Rhodey had finished up his physio and left, and around the time Tony was starting to wonder whether he should wake up the kid for some food. It took him a moment to place it as someone requesting entrance; he was absorbed in the files and didn’t look up until the sound came a second time. 

“Yeah, hold on.” He turned off the tablet and pushed all the papers back into the box before securing it and going to the door. “Who is - oh.”

“I thought you might have some time to see me before the team checks in,” Maximoff said. She held up the tray in her hands as a sort of peace-offering. “I brought tea.”

Tony did not drink tea. “Uh… sounds great. Come on in.” He cast a nervous glance behind him at the closed door to the sleeping area. Steve had been asleep for since Tony had put him back down again and Tony had been debating about whether to ask for some food to be delivered, or to try to get him up and dressed and fed properly. The little kitchen area had been stocked with the basics - enough for him to sort out breakfast, coffee and snacks, at least - but he’d never been one for cooking and he figured that the other meals would involve the rest of their ragtag little group. (And hadn’t he been left with just the most delightful assortment? Not that those departed had borne him any special love, but at least they hadn’t tried to kill or brainwash him. Well, that he knew of, anyway.) He was abruptly nervous. He’d agreed - in principle - for Maximoff to try to turn the kid back, but that had been… well, it had been more under the understanding that he could just hand him over to Barnes and let him take responsibility for those choices. Now that the situation had changed, Tony wasn’t quite so sure about things. Not that Maximoff would hurt the kid, of course.

(Not like…)

He looked back at the door again, biting his lip. “Steve’s asleep, so…”

“That’s OK, I came to talk to you,” she said. She abruptly coloured, as if she had said something shocking or risque. “I’ll just… I’ll just set this down.” She maneuvered her way around the couch through to the little dining table off to one side, and set down the tray with its teapot and clinking little cups. “It’s _chai bora;_ I brought milk, lemon and sugar as I wasn’t sure how you -”

“Just lemon is fine,” Tony interrupted, looking out into the empty hallway before closing the door. He could have sworn that there were guards stationed nearby, but… Hadn’t Dhakiya said that there were guards available and within earshot? What did ‘earshot’ mean in this instance? (And how long would it take them to reach the rooms, if…) “I guess you know this part of the palace pretty well, huh?”

Maximoff did not look up from pouring out the tea into the little porcelain cups, adding thin slices of lemon to each. “Not really.” She was positioned with her back to the open windows, her hair loose around her shoulders like a veil. There was a metal bracelet around one wrist, too solid-looking to have a clasp and too narrow to have been easily put on. Tony recognised it faintly as the one she had been playing with during the briefings. She touched it nervously again, twisting it around her wrist before seeming to realise what she was doing and letting her hand drop. “I - I should have asked if you wanted tea, I mean -”

“I said it was fine,” Tony snapped. _Dammit._ He ran a hand through his hair before finally admitting defeat and sitting down heavily in the nearest chair. He looked up at her. “Sorry. I just - sorry.” He waved a hand. “Have a seat, Wanda. I think I can guess why you’re here.”

Her lips thinned. “All right.” She sat down, little-girl prim, her ankles folded away to one side, her hands clasped in her lap. She’d swapped her leather boots and skirt for one of the long printed dresses that seemed to be in fashion here, a thick belt buckled around it awkwardly. A necklace of tiny red and orange beads hung heavy about her neck. 

She looked… older. 

Tony looked away, feeling more self-conscious than before. He’d never really looked at Maximoff before, dimly aware that she was young and a teammate (sort of) and damaged (definitely) and… well, looking hadn’t really been the done thing in those circumstances. (He hadn’t wanted to make her nervous. Uncomfortable. Angry.) He was surprised to see the stress lines on her face, carving themselves into her forehead and around her mouth in sharp little grooves. No crow’s feet around her eyes, but whatever few years she’d lived had left their mark on her. Well, they all had their scars, he supposed.

He raised a hand to his chest, rubbing absentmindedly at the ache there. 

There really wasn’t any point to putting things off any longer; he might as well get it over with. She’d not come for Steve, so that was a good thing. That she’d come for hm instead was… inevitable. 

_With dignity and self-possession,_ his mother had said, when a seven-year-old Tony had asked how he was supposed to deal with his (first) expulsion from school. So Maximoff hated him; so what. He’d dealt with worse. (He’d lived with worse.) He squared his shoulders and brought his gaze up to meet hers. “Go on, then. Let me have it.” 

Her mouth hung open for a second, working mutely, before she nodded, her hair swinging with the movement. Her hands opened and closed uselessly in her lap. “All right. I - I apologise.” She looked away. “That’s what I came here to say. I apologise.”

Wait.

_Wait._

“Wait,” Tony said, blinking. He’d half-levered himself out his chair in shock. “ _What?_ ” 

She took a deep breath. “It is as I said. I … apologise. For what I did to you at the base, when you first came.” She swallowed, looking a little green. “I should have said something before. That I did not… It was… cruel.”

He had no fucking idea what to do with something like that. “What?” He asked again, helplessly. “I don’t understand. _You’re_ apologising to _me_? Why?”

She inclined her head to one side and met his gaze finally. Her eyes were very green and very clear. Her lips had drawn back, showing the sharp points of her eye-teeth; a challenge, he recognised dimly. “If you do not think there is a reason to,” she said quietly, “then let me wake up Steve right now. I can start to work with him; I am sure that I can bring out what he remembers-”

“ _No._ ” It was too loud. His hand was against the table, bracing him as he half-stood. “No,” he said, more quietly, and settled back down again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Tony reached for the tea on the table; hot liquid sloshed over the side of the cup as he lifted it, trembling, into his lap. The hot weight of it was comforting against his chilled fingers. 

She looked at him for a long moment. “You think I will harm him,” she said. There was an odd look in her face, as if she was in pain. “You have been afraid of me for some time, and I thought… I thought you were afraid of what I might do if we were on opposite sides. We had been, and you had seen me work, and so it made sense. But that is not the whole truth, I think.” She reached out slowly, her hand open. Tony kept himself perfectly still. “It is one thing to be afraid of what someone might do to you if they have a reason to,” she said quietly. “But you are afraid of more. You are afraid of what I might do to someone who cannot defend themselves. You are afraid of me. Not of what I might do. Of _me._ ” Her hand hung between them, pale and open and terrifying.

“That’s not true,” he said. “I - that’s not true.” His grip tightened on the thin porcelain.

“No?” She let her hand drop and leaned back in her chair. “Then why are you holding your tea like that?”

He didn’t need to look down to see how his hand was curled around the bowl rather than the handle of the cup.

“I -”

“You have armed yourself,” she said quietly. “You have the suit, you have the guards. And yet you arm yourself with some hot water. You are afraid of me.” Her lip trembled. “I did not think that I would ever be that person. But I am.” She looked away. Her eyes were glassy and wet. “All I wanted was to somehow make the pain of my loss go away. And instead… There are children whose nightmare tonight will be a red witch coming to kill them in their beds. The - the _one_ thing I never wanted -” Her voice broke. She brushed away the tears on her cheeks angrily, scrubbing at her eyes with the same furious, helpless gesture that -

 _Steve does that,_ Tony thought, horrified. He stared at her, at the carved lines around her mouth and the childish rub at her eyes. The tea in his hand sloshed dangerously as he reached out and set the cup gently on the table. _Steve does that when he’s exhausted, and angry, and -_

He thought about taking her hand in his. (Felt the chill down his back at the thought.) He leaned back in his chair instead. “I just wanted to keep you safe.” It sounded like a confession.

She nodded. “And I just wanted to stop being afraid. I never wanted -” She held up her wrist, displaying the bracelet. “I just - I wanted to show you this. I asked the Princess for it. I described what the collar had done, and I asked for… it doesn’t…” She shook her head frustrated. “I’m not telling it right. I just wanted to tell you that you don’t have to be afraid.” She touched the sleek metal of the bracelet gently, tracing the elegant curl of the design etched into it. “It’s not like the collar. It doesn’t hurt. And I - I chose it. I asked the Princess to make it so that… So it’s…”

“... I understand,” Tony said. He did. It was the difference between having everyone pressing him into the arc reactor surgery, and him choosing to go under on his own terms. It was the difference between Rhodey taking War Machine, and Tony signing it over to him. (It was the difference between Steve taking Tony’s resources to find Barnes, and…) “I’m sorry too. I'm sorry I didn’t give you the choice.” _I’m sorry I didn’t trust you to make the right choice._

She nodded disjointedly and wiped away the last of her tears. “I do not delude myself that this makes anything better. But I wanted to say it. I wanted it to have been said. I spoke to Vision about - about what I did, how I hurt him. We... we talked.” She reached for her cup and drank it shakily, her posture still that of the chastised little girl.

 _She’s too young for this,_ Tony thought, appalled. And again, the shame hit. Because if Wanda was too young, then so was Peter. And Tony had barely hesitated before bringing him in. _Neither of us thought twice when it came to sacrificing them._ (He’d like to think that he hadn’t judged the others a threat, that he hadn’t put Peter in any danger, but he knows better. Wanda had been there, and Barnes. There was no way to explain that away.) That they’d both come away relatively unharmed was more luck than design.

And how old was Wanda, exactly? Tony had never checked. Early twenties, maybe. Technically an adult, but still prone to childish thinking, and that tendency exacerbated by early trauma. Not a long time with Hydra - maybe not enough time to have seen what she’d truly signed up for before Ultron happened - and certainly still in that age bracket that thought grand gestures could somehow reverse reality. (That if something suitably impossible could be achieved, maybe reality would have no choice but to comply.) 

_You know killing yourself won’t bring them back, right?_ Obie had asked him the first time he’d OD’d and ended up in hospital after his parents had died. (He’d OD’d before, of course, but it had never been quite as bad - or as calculated - as this.) _It’s not a bargain. That’s not how it works. You’re here, and they’re not, and that’s something you’re going to have to come to terms with eventually._

In retrospect, Tony doesn’t think that he’d been honestly trying something quite that stupid. (Not _quite._ )

 _That’s not how it works,_ had stuck with him, though. Through losing his mom. Through Afghanistan, and Yinsen, and every death afterwards, Obie included. _If I could only build a better suit, save enough lives…_

If he could only be a better person, maybe...

And, somehow, Obie’s voice in the back of his head, _it’s not a bargain. That’s not how it works._

 _We let her down. She should never have been in the field. Neither of them. They could have been given the name, the title; sure. But there should have been a training programme, monitoring…_ Much like what he was - belatedly - trying to do with Peter. Trying to make it right.

If Tony had had access to the Iron Man suit at twenty, twenty-one… it doesn’t bear thinking about.

And what options had been left open for Wanda? An arrest warrant, exile...

(He doesn’t know what to do.)

“Let me refresh your tea,” he said, his voice a croak.

They sat in silence.

 _“Mister?”_ Came from the baby monitor a couple of minutes later and Tony jumped, startled. _“Mister? Are you there?”_

“That’s Steve - I better -” He was fumbling this, he thought, appalled. 

Maximoff seemed similarly spooked. “No - I am imposing, I should -” She scrambled to her feet and backed away. “Um - let me know when - if - you want me to try to undo the magic - I mean - just - let me know -”

She fled before he could get another word out.

 _I’m starting to think that no one on this team should be allowed on the field before a whole host of psychiatrists have been let loose on us,_ Tony thought. He shook his head. There would be time enough for that later.

As for Wanda… well, he wasn’t deluding himself. He was never going to be square with her. There was too much bad blood between them for that: her bargains, and his choices. _Much like Barnes,_ he thought, his heart heavy. (He doubted there’d ever be a part of him that wouldn’t trade Barnes’s life away for the slightest possibility that it could undo what he’d done; that it could bring Tony’s mom back.)

_It’s not a bargain, Tony. That’s not how it works._

Obie’s voice sounded strange with a Brooklyn accent.

(But maybe he could trust her. Just a little. Just enough to help Steve.)

“Hey, kiddo, what’s up?”

A small sob came from the bed, Steve’s whole body shaking with it. 

_Christ._ Was he hurt? Or just frightened? Tony had more or less snapped at him when he’d put him back to bed. Hell, maybe he was just hungry. Did kids cry when they were hungry? (Babies did, sure, but when did that stop?) He had plenty of vocab at his disposal, though; wouldn’t he have asked? (Did he know to ask?)

“Hey, come on, now. Come on.” Tony awkwardly gathered up the bundled child in his arms, easing the bedlinen away from his red and blotchy face. “Covering your face up like that won’t help your breathing. Come on, now.”

Steve gulped in air, wet and pained-sounding, and twisted in Tony’s arms to bury his face against Tony’s shoulder. “‘M sorry, I didn’t mean to be a bother, I tried to be quiet, I‘m sorry -”

“Shhhh.” From one child to another. _And what bargains have you been making, Steve, hmmm? First the entire world for Barnes, and now…_ “You’re OK, it’s all OK. Come on, now, why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? You hungry? You hurt anywhere?”

Steve shook his head, holding tightly onto Tony’s T-shirt. “No, no, no -”

“Shhhh, come on, it’s OK, you can tell me.” A thought struck him. He’d been jumpy and frightened earlier as well. Maybe... “Did you have a nightmare? About the base?”

The kid hesitated at that for a moment then shook his head again, burrowing into Tony’s shoulder.

Not the base, OK. “Something else?” Tony hazarded. He shifted them so he was sitting with his back against the headboard, the kid sprawled in his lap. He brought the comforter up around the both, pillowing Steve against his shoulder. “Did something else scare you?”

A tiny nod, almost invisible against Tony’s shoulder.

“Yeah? You want to tell me about it?”

The head shake was a lot more definite that time.

OK, he could work with that. What had Jarvis done when he'd had nightmares as a kid? Warm milk and a bedtime story; he could do that. Well, the warm milk probably wasn't a good idea, given the state of Steve's lungs, but... “Well, how about we read a little bit instead, would that be OK?” He took the silence for assent. “All right, what do we have…” The little nightstand also had a small selection of children’s books, and Tony rifled through a few of them - the Ugly Duckling, really? Who the hell had chosen these? - before settling down with a volume of Arthurian mythology (reading ages 9+). _Eh, close enough._ “You said you liked these, right? King Arthur?”

Steve twisted a little in Tony’s arms so he could see the cover of a the book. He sniffled and nodded, settling himself down. “OK,” he whispered.

Tony flipped the book open to the first chapter: the _Sword in the Stone_. “In ancient times, in a far-away country called England, there lived a boy called Arthur,” he started, his voice soft and low. “Arthur was the son of the king. But some bad men wanted to hurt Arthur, so he was sent far away to live with the king’s best friend - this OK?”

Steve nodded, his eyes on the book. On the inside cover there was a lovely watercolour illustration of a small blonde boy, dwarfed in his princely tunic, holding a sword up with both hands.

Tony continued reading. “Arthur grew up far away from the palace…”

After a moment, Steve let go of his death-grip on Tony’s T-shirt and reached down to rest his hand on the page, his fingers against Tony’s. His breathing evened out.

“The king’s best friend was a knight…”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter just wouldn't come. :/ I'd originally planned to start on the whole Tony & Wanda relationship a bit later on, but quickly came to realise that in Tony's current state, he wouldn't let her anywhere near Steve. So we'd have to go through some of those issues before anything could move on. (Of course, saying it and having it be resolved are two very different things; it's good that they've opened lines of dialogue, but there's very little trust there.) I know that a lot of people don't like Wanda, and believe that as she is an adult, she should be treated as such. I do agree to some extent, but I'm very conscious of how erratic my own reasoning was in my late teens/early twenties, and that was _without_ a massive formative trauma. So - not excusing, but explaining -I'd like to think that she could be given a second chance to redeem herself and fix her earlier mistakes. That said, I don't think that putting her on a combat team with zero therapy was the best approach. And I really disagreed with Tony bringing Peter to the fight, when he had every reason to expect the Winter Soldier and/or Wanda to be there.
> 
> With respect to the bracelet - I can't imagine the T'Challa we saw in Black Panther letting someone as uncontrolled and as dangerous as Wanda walk around. (Let alone someone with outstanding arrest warrants - but we'll get to that later.) And having Wanda _choose_ to take an active step in controlling her powers was important to me in helping her and Tony meet halfway. Now all he has to do is trust her with Steve..
> 
> Rhodey is... missing Sam. And Sam is not doing well. (Obviously.)
> 
> And Steve is not as untouched by all that's happened as first appeared.
> 
> Finally, I've added Black Panther as a fandom tag but haven't added any characters other than T'Challa (yet). I'm adding character tags only when they've had sufficient page time. But I'm really pleased that this fic should fit - with only tiny little tweaks - shortly after the Black Panther film takes place, and I can start to use some of the wonderful characters we met, in particular Okoye. 
> 
> Next time - we hear back from our deployed team.


	10. Chapter 10

_Tony woke in increments, blinking against the bright light overhead. Where was he? He’d - no, he was back in the compound, he had been in his workshop, Steve had just brought him some coffee, and…_

_The thought slipped away._

_The light was too bright; he could barely see with it flooding his vision. He raised his arms to shield his eyes, trying to focus. The floor beneath him was cold, the freezing feeling prickling through his limbs as he tried to sit up. Tried, and failed, because there was a heavy weight on his legs. This… He knew this. His vise around chest clenched at the sudden panic the realisation brought._

_He blinked again, willing his eyes to focus, and the light resolved around the familiar form kneeling around him. Keeping him down. Keeping him helpless, and still, and ready for the killing blow._

_“I can do this all day,” Steve said, and drove the edge of his shield down into Tony’s ribs._

*

He jolted awake and almost fell off the edge of the bed, grabbing hold of the headboard and putting a foot on the ground to steady himself. _Goddamit._ He hadn’t had one that bad for a while. He’d had disturbed dreams, sure - the week or so immediately after Siberia hadn’t exactly been a cakewalk - but he’d thought he was getting better, dammit. He’d thought…

Well, it didn’t matter what he’d thought. His sleep seemed to be either deep and soothing, or hellish and full of nightmares, no in-between. It was a toss-up what he’d get on any given night. And - he looked down at the child still asleep on his chest - maybe the nightmares did make a certain amount of sense. It wasn’t as though he could busy himself in work and put the whole fucking mess to the back of his mind. No, his whole day was now Steve-focused. Well, child-focused, anyway; his brain still found it most comforting to treat the child as a separate person from the adult. 

“Bet you never thought you’d be anyone’s bogeyman,” Tony whispered into the soft hair. Steve didn’t seem inclined to answer, snuffling in his sleep and burrowing closed. Tony snorted. “Yeah, you never listened to me then, why am I even surprised.” Moving carefully, he extracted himself from beneath the kid and settled him back under the covers. _Next time, I’ll do storytime from a chair,_ he thought, stretching carefully. His ribs ached abominably. They’d healed from the damage in Siberia - mostly - but the bruising had yet to truly fade, and sleeping twisted up had done him no favours. Hell, carting Steve around like a sack of potatoes had also probably not been his brightest move. Jarvis had always complained that Tony was too heavy to carry around as a small child, and Tony had never - quite - believed him. Being balanced on someone’s hip wouldn’t put that much pressure on it, the weight would be spread out, he’d reasoned with impeccable three-year-old logic. Jarvis was just being _old._ (Now, Tony wished he’d complained a little less vociferously about being made to walk everywhere. Jarvis had been old, yes. But now, it appeared, so was Tony.)

“You’re back to walking everywhere the moment that mask is done,” he informed the sleeping child, and checked to make sure the aforementioned mask was within reach. His touch lingered on Steve’s forehead. _I have a whole lot to say to you, and I don’t even know where to start,_ Tony thought. _It really is just like you to cut my legs out from under me before I’ve even managed to get a single word in. And you accuse me of hogging the limelight._

Steve stirred a little under Tony’s hand. “Mom?” He asked drowsily. His eyes were still closed. Trusting.

 _... I hate you so much sometimes._ “Shhh,” Tony said, his voice soft and low. “It’s OK. Go back to sleep.” 

Steve exhaled suddenly, as if in a rush, and went limp under Tony’s hand as he fell back asleep.

Tony took his hand away after a moment and watched him for a little while. _I hate you,_ he thought again, deliberately. _What you did to me, how you lied -_

Steve hiccupped, turning in his sleep, distressed, and Tony reached out again instinctively, soothing away the fright. “Shhh,” he whispered in another man’s voice. “It’s OK. I have you. It’s OK.”

He was so fucking screwed.

*

He managed to force himself to leave the bedroom a little while later. _Masochists without boundaries are no fun at all,_ he reminded himself, and went to look for coffee. 

He made himself a pot with the little French press provided in the kitchenette and sat back down at the desk with the box of data. Rogers’s audio records were in one corner of the box on what he assumed was the Wakandan equivalent of a thumb drive (either that, or Romanoff had given him some decorative rocks by mistake). 

Tony held the little black pebble in his hand and thought about playing the recordings. _No secrets between us now, Cap._ Not when Tony had access to everything that Rogers had wanted to record, but not tell anyone about. _All those things you decided to keep from me because it was for my own good…_ What other things had Rogers lied about? After Siberia, Tony had found himself combing back through their time on the team together, trying to figure out what things might have been kept from him. His parents, Barnes… what else? Fury’s fake death, of course. Tony had been told by Hill - who evidently had reason to keep him on-side, even if no one else did - and she had told him that he could contact Fury through her, through Romanoff, or through Rogers. Rogers himself hadn’t mentioned it, though, and Tony hadn’t thought further on that at the time. But it was possible that neither Rogers nor Romanoff had known that Hill had approached him.

What else? If he played those recordings, what would be on there? Rogers’s thoughts on Barnes, for sure. On Tony, possibly - well, Romanoff would hardly tell him to listen to it if it was just an Ode to Murderbot. On Siberia…? 

_No more secrets, Cap,_ he thought again, and felt the same flare of rage and betrayal he’d felt back at the bunker. _All that dirty laundry you accuse the rest of us of…_

For some reason, though, he couldn’t quite bring himself to activate the recoding. _For fuck’s sake. I should just listen to it, and get it over with._ Whatever Rogers had to say couldn’t be worse than two years of betrayal. 

The pebble sat in the centre of his hand, inert, as he thought about it. 

It wasn’t even that Steve was - technically - sleeping a few feet away. Or that Tony wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to hear what Rogers thought worth recording, half a world and a broken promise away. It was simpler than that: he didn’t want to have to find out this way. He didn’t want Romanoff to choose for him, to have the decision be taken out of Rogers’s hands. Romanoff had combed through the recordings for useful data already (and, depending on the length, possibly she’d had help from the others) so it wasn’t as though there was anything in there that wouldn’t have been pulled out and indexed in the data packets that sat neatly piled to one side. 

No: the only things left would have been what Romanoff thought useful for Tony to hear.

And Tony… Tony was done trusting her judgement. For the good of the team; sure. For Rogers’s sake; absolutely. But for Tony’s sake, for Tony’s well-being? No, he knew exactly where he ranked on her priority list.

He slid the pebble into the pocket of his slacks. _Out of sight, out of mind,_ wasn’t that how the saying went? As long as he didn’t have to look at it, he wouldn’t be tempted.

He settled down with the coffee and the data packets - including, interestingly, some background briefing notes on Einstein-Rosen bridges from Jane Foster, who evidently either worked faster than anyone Tony had ever seen, or was preparing for some sit-up-and-take-notice postdoctoral work - and wrapped one of the decorative throws around his shoulders for warmth. Wakanda may have technically been an equatorial country, but Birnin Zana had quite a bit of elevation to it and the evenings were cooler than he’d like.

He’d made good progress on the results and implications around residual trace radiation after a portal connection when there was a faint sound from outside - from the corridor - that made him pause, pen in hand. He frowned. It hadn’t sounded like fighting, precisely, but there was something strange about -

_CRASH._

OK, _that_ sounded like fighting. And far too close for his liking. His eyes tracked back to the closed bedroom door, Steve still blissfully asleep on the other side.

Asleep, and helpless.

“FRIDAY, suit.” The suit assembled around him as he hurried back into the bedroom and carefully caught hold of the sleeping Steve. “Kid, wake up. Come on, Steve, I need you to wake up now.”

The child startled awake, then blinked sleepily up at him. He seemed almost happy for a moment, then caught sight of Tony’s armour and sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“Something is happening outside, I need to go check. I need you to stay out of sight, OK? Stay inside the room, hide out of sight if you can. Alright?” He shook Steve’s shoulders a little, forcing the child to make eye-contact. “Look at me. Promise?”

Steve nodded numbly, staring up at Tony as he closed down the face-plate and ran back out.

At the far end of the corridor leading to their suite, a lone attacker was dispatching the last of the four guards that had been assigned to their living quarters. Three were already on the floor, their throats and bellies opened, blood puddling around the bodies. The fourth guard was dangling in the attacker’s grip, making choking sounds. 

The attacker was dressed in what looked like a knock-off of a Buddhist monk’s outfit, albeit in somber colours and with some rather swashbuckling boots to complete the look. About Tony’s height, medium build, he had a close-cropped afro and a faint scar on his forehead. If he hadn’t been dressed up as some sort of weird cross between Robin Hood and the Dalai Lama, Tony wasn’t sure he would have been able to pick him out of a crowd.

“Why does it always have to be the costumed lot,” Tony muttered, staring with appalled fascination at the attacker, who in addition to holding up the guard with one hand, was also wielding a _sword_. “Hey, Ninja Turtle, LARPing season is over, time to hang up the sword!” 

The swordsman turned to face him, one hand still closed tight around the neck of the guard. “Now why would Iron Man be in Birnin Zana?” The man asked in a cultured English accent, shifting his stance slightly. He tightened his grip, his hand jerking sharply to one side, and the guard went limp in his grip. “How interesting.” He let go, the guard’s head hitting the ground with the heavy, wet thud that Tony knew far too well. “I do not wish to hurt you, Mr Stark. Please stand aside.” 

Like hell. There was no chance this guy was here for anyone other than the kid. Not when he’d had to get through God knew how many guards to make it to this point. Now was definitely not the time to be looking for a de-escalation solution. “Sorry, not sorry,” Tony said, and fired a repulsor blast at his head. 

A - shield? something like that, anyway - seemed to sprout from the guy’s fingers, twisting in complicated runes around his wrist, bright and crackling with energy. The repulsor blast hit the flat shield and seemed to dissipate, sputtering out in a shower of sparks across the entire glowing circle. _Oh, great. Not just a costume fetishist; it had to be fucking_ magic _as well._ Of course it was. Chances were, this guy was one of the people responsible for the pile of dead bodies piled up high from Lapland southwards. 

And, like the idiots they were, they’d all decided that there was no chance of the bad guys coming back to finish the job and cut up one last kid. 

Where the hell was everyone? Surely the first thing the guards would have done would have been to sound the alarm. Where was Okoye? Dhakiya? Fucking _Barnes_?

“OK, I guess we can do this the hard way,” Tony said, and reached for the guy instead. He didn’t have a whole lot of options fighting in close quarters (and he wasn’t going to use the unibeam unless absolutely necessary, as there was a good chance it would take out half the palace) but even if he couldn’t use the repulsors, that didn’t mean that he didn’t have offensive weapons available to him. The suit’s structural integrity was strong enough to let him crush the guy’s head like an eggshell.

 _If_ he could grab him, of course. The guy seemed to be everywhere at once, never quite where Tony expected him to be. He was still wielding the glowy circle of light, which seemed to be equal parts shield and some sort of blade, as well as - _fuck!_ \- his actual sword, which was not, unfortunately, a stage-safe plastic one.

He couldn’t get a grip on the bastard. Every time he reached, the guy twisted away, smashing down solid hits on the joints of the armour, where he was most vulnerable. FRIDAY’s voice was a litany of damage reports in Tony’s ear as he tried to parry the sword with his suited arm, and reach under the guy’s guard with the other. _Left flank contact, armour integrity compromised 8%,_ FRIDAY said in his ear; _right arm contact, armour integrity compromised 12%,_ FRIDAY said, and _his fighting style integrates movements which are not physically possible, Boss. Recommend disengaging and retreating. Boss. Boss, recommend -_

“Off,” Tony gasped, and kicked at the swordman’s hand, trying to at least knock the fucking sword away. “Your name wouldn’t be Inigo Montoya, would it?” How was the guy moving so fast? It wasn’t even the combination of the sword and the glowy shield of doom; the guy was never where physics and ten years of solid hand-to-hand fighting had told Tony he would be. _Fucking magic._

The swordsman actually laughed at that. “You seem a decent fellow, Mr Stark. I hate to kill you.”

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake._ Human, then. Or at least familiar enough with Western pop culture to pass as one. “I’d respond appropriately, but, to be honest, you don’t especially seem like a decent fellow, so I’m afraid that -” He lunged forward, mouth half-open to try the unibeam on the lowest setting. “FRIDAY, uni-”

The glowy shield flashed bright across Tony’s vision as it moved - confusingly, incomprehensibly - from being on Tony’s right side, below him, to suddenly being on his left, and above him. It came down, once, twice, the impact across the HUD sharp and jarring, making Tony see stars as his head rang. The shield lifted for a third time, and started to come down - the edge, this time, sharp as any knife - heading unerringly towards the vulnerable eye-slits in the face-plate.

 _Oh, shit,_ Tony just had enough time to think, and his eyes squeezed shut reflexively.

“ _Ublyudok_ ,” someone gasped, too close, and Tony went down in a tangle of limbs, the breath knocked out of him despite the suit’s cushioning.

 _Barnes._

Cutting it close, evidently, as he put his body between Tony and the swordsman, and bore the latter backwards. He managed to sweep the guy’s legs out with a move that Tony wasn’t sure was physically possible, and pressed him down into the floor, trying to immobilise him. He had his flesh hand on the swordsman's throat, and his metal one on the wrist of the hand with the glowy shield. “Hurry up,” he hissed, trying to force the swordsman to stay still.

For a mad moment, Tony thought that Barnes was talking to him, and tried to stagger to his feet. But -

“Yekela,” Okoye snapped into her wrist, stepping over Tony as she ran to take a defensive position in front of him. 

On Tony’s other side, there was a metallic _clang_ as Maximoff’s bracelet suddenly opened in response, clattering to the ground, and she reached for the swordsman with her magic. 

_Voice-release,_ the small part of Tony still endlessly impressed with the Wakandan tech noted. He was still trying to get to his feet, his ears ringing and his vision blurring. The fucker had managed to get a few good hits in there, and in between his bruised chest and his ringing ears, even the suit didn’t seem enough to keep him upright. 

“Stay back,” Okoye hissed, and positioned herself so that she was shielding him with her body, her weapons drawn.

 _I’m the one in the armour,_ Tony tried to say, but he still couldn’t get his breath back. His vision swam, mottled colours crowding him. How hard had that bastard hit him? He hadn’t lost consciousness, surely… “FRIDAY, status,” he managed to gasp.

_Boss, you may be concussed. I suggest evacuating to a safe distance. Boss -_

“Off,” he muttered, and tried to get to his feet.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with Okoye, Maximoff drew herself up as tall as she could, and reached for the attacker with her powers.

The swordsman did not take it well. He took one look at the red tendrils twisting from Maximoff’s wrists and his expression contorting with rage. The glowing shield crackled and spat energy as he struggled. “Another one!” He shouted, bracing a knee against Barnes’s abdomen and shoving him backwards bodily. 

Barnes flew back a good six feet and thudded into the wall, climbing to his feet to stumble back in the swordsman’s direction. 

The swordsman didn’t even look at him. “You crawl across this earth like locusts!” With a quick, vicious movement, he stumbled to his feet and drew a sharp circle in the air. 

The air -

Split.

Tony stared, his mouth dry. It was a portal. It was a _portal_ and this guy had just casually torn it open, like it was nothing, and -

It wasn’t the portal of his nightmares, no. There wasn’t an alien army waiting on the other side as the swordsman threw Maximoff a hateful look and stepped through. 

(It was worse.)

 _That’s - that’s Steve’s bedroom -_

No wonder the guy had managed to get into the palace without the alarm being raised.

Maybe he hadn’t known exactly where Steve’s room was; maybe he hadn’t had the range, previously. Maybe precision wasn’t something that was guaranteed with these things. But whatever the reason, it was clear that he knew where he was going now. He knew who he needed to get to.

_Steve._

Before he knew what he was doing, Tony activated the repulsors, barrelling through the portal in the split-second before it closed. 

The energy shield punch connected with the HUD straight-on more or less the moment he arrived, the helmet giving way under the sheer force exerted. Tony landed heavily and did not get up again.

 _Boss,_ FRIDAY said, her voice wavering. _Boss, there is damage to the HUD-_

“It is unfortunate, Mr Stark,” the swordsman said, standing over Tony’s prone form. Tony stared up at him through the cracked and distorted viewscreen of the HUD. “Your loss will be a loss to the entire world. I wish you had not made this necessary. I regret it.” Weirdly, he sounded as though he meant it, frowning down at Tony as he raised the glowy shield again -

The door crashed open, Okoye and half a dozen similarly-uniformed women running in, Barnes and Maximoff hot on their heels. Maximoff’s eyes were glowing red.

 _Good enough._ “I don’t,” Tony bit out, and turned up the unibeam to full power.

It hit the swordsman dead-on - and glanced off the energy shield he’d raised instinctively, bouncing upwards to punch a hole straight through the ceiling, all the way up through the roof.

 _That works too,_ Tony thought. A black haze prickled at the edges of his vision, threatening to swamp him. He had to get the kid to safety. If he couldn’t fight the guy… There was really only one option. (He hoped that Maximoff wouldn’t take it personally.) 

“Steve! C’mere!” A small form hurtled out of the closet - _good boy,_ Tony thought - and fell into Tony’s arms, pale and cold and terrified and _alive._ “Still not sorry,” Tony said, and activated the boot repulsors, aiming for the open sky above, Steve held safely in his arms.

Hearing the sword guy’s yell of rage as he sped them out of reach was possibly the most satisfying thing he’d heard all week.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that was _The Princess Bride_ being somewhat mangled in there. Okoye has the voice-activated release for Wanda's bracelet, and she opens it using the Xhosa for 'let go' or 'release'. My knowledge of Xhosa is limited to google translate, so if anyone has a correction, it would be very welcome.
> 
> Barnes swears in Russian. The translation is roughly bastard, fucker, and several other variations on that.
> 
> Comments are love.


	11. Chapter 11

The HUD was damaged. This was bad enough news when he was on the ground. In the air...

 _Boss, suit integrity is critically compromised, you need to land. Boss, you need to land_ immediately _. Boss -_

“FRIDAY, if you don’t have something useful to say, you need to stay _quiet_ ,” Tony grit out. He could feel something hot and wet trickle down the side of his face. Then, a moment later, “sorry, baby girl. But I can’t land. Not until it’s safe.”

For the moment, he was about half a click away from the palace and as high as he dared to be, given the damage to the suit. (And possibly to his head.) If the flight systems failed, hopefully he’d be able to manage a safe(ish) landing, but until then (and until he’d figured out how the attacker had been able to track Steve down) he was keeping far away from anyplace a portal could conveniently open up again.

_That’s assuming he doesn’t know how to fly, of course. Although - if he’d been able to fly, he’d have come after us, so…_

“How are the others?” He didn’t even have the option of setting Steve down somewhere and going back to help; not if the guy could just magic himself back to the kid whenever he pleased. No, he needed to keep them out of reach and moving, and the best he could do was hope that there hadn’t been any further casualties. “Have they checked in?”

There was a longish pause while FRIDAY queried back with the palace, during which time Tony’s brain helpfully provided him with a variety of scenarios, up to and including a 100% casualty rate, a room full of kiddified Dora Milaje, Scarlet Witch and Winter Soldier, and a selection of other horrors hopefully limited to the pages of a Lovecraft novel. He scanned the edge of the distortion field around the palace, looking for any signs of smoke or movement. What was the Wakandan protocol in case of an attack? In the US an attack on a secure building would trigger a lock-down, but with an attacker able to literally walk through walls… If they got through this, he’d need to get himself in a room with the Joint Chiefs. He’d bet his bottom dollar that no one had done any contingency planning for what to do if the attackers stopped observing the laws of physics. The closest anyone had come to it had been Nick Fury’s little tesseract side-project, and look how well _that_ had turned out. “Fri? You’re scaring me.”

 _Sorry, boss,_ she said, repentant. _I was conferring with the General. The attacker portalled away, and they are not sure where. They assume he is trying to follow you, as his focus has been on Captain Rogers. The General is arranging for a safe house. Coordinates - received._

A flight course was laid out for him, away from the palace and towards the mountains just barely visible in the distance.

_The General says that you will be expected, and they will follow shortly._

“And whoever is waiting for us will be able to fight off a super-strong wizard wielding a sword?” He asked doubtfully, already turning in the direction of the mountains. His right boot repulsor had a bit of a list to it; a blow must have pushed it out of alignment. He bent his knee slightly to compensate, wincing at the pressure this put on his hip. _The kid’s almost too heavy to carry without the suit, my vision’s going, and now my hip is complaining at a plié. Just give me a walker and call me Old Man Stark._ “Fri?”

 _The General says they have her full confidence,_ FRIDAY said. She did not sound convinced. _Boss…_

Tony sighed. “Right, well. It’s not like I have a lot of choice.” He looked down at the exhausted child in his arms. “Steve, buddy? We’re going to have to go someplace else now, to keep away from the bad guy. Are you going to be OK if I carry you for a bit?”

Steve looked up at him and nodded. He was dressed in his thin pyjamas, his feet bare. His lips were already starting to turn blue from the cold.

 _Perfect._ They’d be lucky if they didn’t manage to accidentally kill the kid with all these frequent bouts of exposure.

“I hope Wakanda believes in clotheslines,” he muttered, and set the suit to scan for any movement following the wind direction. Maybe they’d get lucky and come across a blanket or a sweater pegged up to dry outside.

Well, the alternative was setting down somewhere and, frankly, with the way the HUD was flickering, Tony wasn’t sure they’d be able to make it all the way to the mountains, let alone cope with a detour.

“Just hold tight,” he said instead, and headed in the direction of the snowy peaks.

*

The mountains, much as the snowy preview had promised, turned out to be fucking freezing.

By the time Tony had staggered to the coordinates - the right boot repulsor entirely dead, and the HUD interface flickering worryingly - Steve had gone limp and unresponsive in his arms. Tony’s vision was starting to prickle, the kaleidoscopic visual disturbances becoming more pronounced. _Great, the concussion no one needed is here._ He hoped that their welcome party would arrive soon, and that they’d bring painkillers with them. And _blankets._ “Steve? Come on, kid, don’t do this - FRIDAY, get the heat cranked up - Steve, come on -” He half-fell out of the suit as the heating elements suddenly powered up to almost scalding, lifting Steve inside and cushioning him with his body against the icy blast that slammed into them almost immediately. “FRIDAY, where the hell is Okoye’s welcome party? She said -”

“The Dora Milaje promise a lot on other people’s behalf,” a voice said from the shadows, and Tony spun around, raising a hand to his head as the dizziness hit. “Are there any wazungu in Wakanda we will not be required to rescue?”

“Well,” Tony said weakly, staring, “in my defence -” - he was probably hallucinating, because surely no one was that big without some serum enhancement. The guy was - in a word - _huge_. Easily a foot taller than Tony, as broad as Rogers and wearing fucking _fur_.

“I am not interested in your defence,” the man said, and stepped further into the light. Yup, definitely hallucinating. “I am interested in what you are doing here. You, and the others that have moved into the palace. I did not restore T’Challa to the throne to have him abandon it! And for what? A European gap year?”

It was fast becoming apparent to Tony that Okoye had managed to pack him and Steve off to the James Farley of Wakanda. If he’d had a little more time, he would have probably tried for a charm offensive. It was always good to form new relationships, after all. And this guy was undoubtedly someone it would be helpful to cultivate, especially if T’Challa’s situation was as precarious as he was starting to suspect.

But given everything that had just happened, and the glow of the aura that signified his concussion’s arrival like a marching band at a funeral - “Right. So you’re _not_ gonna help? Sorry to press you on this, but I have an unconscious seven year old and a fucking Death Eater who likes to chop up little kids after him, so if you’re not gonna be of any help I need to know now rather than later.” He ran of breath, panting. His vision swam again and he grabbed onto the shoulder of the suit to keep himself upright. “Also, I might throw up on you,” he said upon reflection. _Always warn before you hurl;_ if nothing else, Rhodey had managed to get that one lesson hammered into him by graduation.

(This was probably not the place to snuff it. But maybe Okoye had trusted this guy for a reason; maybe he’d be able to protect Steve. That was the priority.)

“All you big shots keep turning up here and swooning at my feet, it’ll start to give me ideas,” the guy said, sounding very far away. “What’s the child’s name, mzungu?”

“Steve,” he managed. His vision was almost entirely gone, now, and the cold was fast receding as well. “And I’m not swooning, I’m just, I’m just -”

Surprisingly gentle hands caught him as he fell.

*

He woke somewhere warm an indeterminate amount of time later. He couldn’t see anything, and he couldn’t move, but he was warm, and there was a breathing, snuffling little body curled up against his, so it was probably OK. It was probably fine. Even if he was in the dark, and he couldn’t move, it was -

“How is he?” A voice said, and it was like a bucket of icy water.

Tony was instantly, painfully alert. _Barnes._ He couldn’t move, and Barnes was here, and there was someone with him - someone helpless, someone he had to protect - and he couldn’t move, and _Barnes_ was here -

“Shhh,” a woman’s voice said (who was it?) and a small hand fell on his brow. The darkness receded by inches, red light swamping his vision. “It’s OK. You’re safe. Sleep now. Sleep.”

He slept.

He slept and he dreamt of a darkroom suffused with red light, the photos slowly developing from a spool of negatives discarded on the floor. There was the car, crashed against the tree; there was his father, his face brutalised; there was his mother; her neck snapped. And there was someone standing over him - someone he knew, someone he loved - and he was bringing his shield down over Tony’s heart, again and again and again. Beside Tony was a small, crying child, holding Tony’s hand. _Stop, stop,_ the child said, pleaded, sobbed, and then Tony was the one with the shield, and he was bringing it down on the child’s unprotected chest with a sickening _snap._

 _That’s not what happened,_ a woman’s voice said. _Stark._ Tony. _That is not what happened. You need to stop this. Tony. Tony!_

The red light deepened, the negatives spooling out more photos, Tony’s breathing shallow and pained.

 _Steve is standing above Tony with the shield, his face contorted with rage;_  
_Tony’s mother, her neck at an odd angle, slumps in her seat;_  
_the child is curled up against Tony in sleep, his hand tangled in Tony’s T-shirt;_  
_Obie’s hand is in Tony’s chest, pulling out the reactor;_  
_Ho Yinsen is saying,_ don’t waste your life, _the light fading from his eyes;_  
_water is rushing up to meet him as he struggles and chokes and drowns;_  
_Tony crawls across the floor, a hole in his chest;_  
_Rhodey is falling, and Tony is too late (he is always too late);_  
_the child, lips blue, is unresponsive as Tony calls his name and shakes him;_  
_a shield is coming down on Tony’s chest;_  
_again;_  
_again;_  
again -

_Tony. That is enough!_

The images stopped, flickering like a juddering carousel, the shield poised over Tony’s chest.

(Tony couldn’t breathe.)

 _“How is he?_ He heard again, from a long way away. Someone was nearby, someone who meant him harm, someone who was a danger to him and to the child. Someone was -

_“He is concussed, and distressed. I will do what I can, but he is… he is frightened of me.”_

The red light came again, the photos melting one by one.

(He breathed out.)

*

“Tony? Come on, quit lazing around, Stark. Wake up, come on.”

His head fucking _hurt_. Tony groaned, shying away from the hand prodding him awake, and tried to peel his eyes open. The light was excruciating, more or less stabbing him in the eyeballs as he blinked himself awake. He was in a bed, weighed down by an impressive pile of blankets and furs, and there was a thatch of blonde hair peeking out from beneath the blankets on his right. And was that - yup, that was the kid’s knee digging into his bladder. _Kid, you better be without a scratch on you, or I’m gonna shove that sword so far up Inigo Montoya’s ass -_

“Tony, come on. You awake? Look at me.”

A painfully bright light was waved in Tony’s eyes and he irritably smacked it away. “Go away, my head hurts.”

“I’ll bet. You’ve got quite the shiner.” Barton grinned at him as he pocketed the penlight, the pinched look on his face briefly fading. “Your pupils look OK, though, so you’re probably not bleeding in your brain. You had everyone worried there for a bit, you know. Okoye almost cracked an expression.”

“That woman hates me,” Tony muttered.

“Which must be such a shock, considering what a swell first impression you normally make.”

Tony dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, groaning at the pressure. “What’s the score? FRIDAY didn’t give me much before we were sent to the Lonely Mountain and Apollo Creed’s welcoming committee. I thought this was meant to be a safehouse?”

“Eh.” Barton wriggled a hand. “Apparently there are politics involved. But the Jabari - that’s the people here - are pretty lethal in hand to hand combat. If D'Artagnan turns up again, I’m fairly certain that Lord M’Baku - that’s, uh, the guy you fainted on - can turn him into paste.”

“That’s what we thought about the palace guard, and now they’re sushi. And anyway, the fucker’s using some of portal techno- I did _not_ faint!”

“You swooned like an overwrought Victorian maiden,” Barton said placidly, and held up a glass of water. “Now take your painkillers like a good boy, and get some sleep. The entire team is here, not the mention the scary Amazon army, and there’s a whole bunch of yelling happening right now that I promise you, you’ll want to be asleep for. Apparently the politics here are just as much fun as those at home, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not real keen on getting stuck in the middle of it all.”

Tony didn’t fight the glass of water or the painkillers, accepting them both with a grimace. “What’s going on? I remember the attack - sort of - and then arriving at the mountain.” The giant mountain guy, he remembered him as well. Shit, maybe he really _had_ fainted on a Lord, like a Jane Austen heroine. Well, it was one way to make an impression, he supposed. As long as Lord mountain guy didn’t want to evict him or Steve in response… He passed a hand over Steve’s hair, gently checking for any lumps or bumps. “Is the kid OK? Everyone else?” A thought occurred, freezing him. “Oh, God. Is Rhodey OK?” Fuck, he’d left Rhodey at the palace, fucking _defenceless_ -

“Steve’s fine, he was chilled, but no injuries. They gave him something to put him to sleep for a bit, it’s the best thing for him. Rhodey’s fine,” Barton reassured him, shifting closer. He still had his uniform on, and a shiner of his own across his left eye. “He’s at the hospital in Birnin Zana. No one’s gunning for him, and -” his cheeks briefly heated up. “Uh, the mountain’s not exactly wheelchair accessible. Dhakiya’s staying with him.”

“Right.” That was a relief, at least. Tony rubbed a hand over his face and struggled to sit up without dislodging Steve, clinging limpet-like to his side. “Well, that’s good, I guess. Did you catch the name of the guy I fainted on? I should probably apologise...” Had he been a Lord? For some reason Tony was fairly sure the guy was a Lord.

Barton gave him an odd look, but obligingly helped him sit up, positioning the pillow behind him. “That OK? It’s Lord M’Baku.”

Tony blinked at him.

“The guy you fainted on? Lord M’Baku,” Barton prompted, his expression tightening.

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” Tony said absently. “The others? Did you guys find anything?” He was forgetting something. Wasn’t he? It had come, and then it had gone again.

“Everyone else is here. A doctor’s coming out to check on you here, so…”

What was it? Hmmm… “Sure,” Tony said, not paying attention.

Barton was watching him carefully, his brows drawn together in a frown. “Tony? You OK?” He got the penlight out again, shining it in Tony’s eyes.

Tony smacked him away. “Would you quit it with the laserpoint, Jesus, I’m not a fucking cat; go bother T’Challa if you want to play.” What the hell was it, it was on the tip of his tongue… He pushed the blankets away, blinking at the small blonde head resting against his side.

 _Christ._ How could he have forgotten. His hand reached out, smoothing the blonde hair, checking for injuries. “Steve, how is he?”

There was a pause.

“He’s fine, Tony,” Barton said slowly. “Like I said. No injuries. Just has a bit of a chill.” His eyes were fixed on Tony’s face. “Tony? Are you on any medication right now?”

Tony blinked at him. Barton swayed, separated out into two and then came back together again. That was strange. Wasn’t that strange? “Um… I - warfarin,” he mumbled. _I don’t care, you have to get it checked out!_ Pepper had yelled, and Tony had been good. He’d let the doctors tape up his ribs after Siberia, and when they asked if there was anything else, he’d said, _yes. I have these shooting pains in my arm…_ and so he had the warfarin. It was just preventative, it was fine, it was like a vitamin, really; it didn’t mean _anything._

Wait, he was forgetting something. _Shit._ “Is Rhodey OK?” he asked urgently. Why hadn’t Barton said anything? Christ, if he hadn’t said anything, that meant - “Rhodey, what happened to him -” He tried to push himself out of bed. His arms wouldn’t hold his weight, and his stomach dropped out from under him. _Rhodey._

“He’s fine,” Barton soothed, face pale, pressing him back down. “Rhodey’s fine. Steve’s fine. Everyone else is fine.” He grabbed for the pebble on the little table by the bed, thumbing it until it flashed red. “You just took a bit of a blow to the head, so we’re going to get you checked out, OK?”

No, that was _not_ OK. Who the hell did Barton think he was, to hold him down when Tony didn’t want to be held down? When - when -

It was gone again, he’d just had it, and it was gone.

“What’s happening,” he slurred, distressed. His vision spun. "What's - Clint - I -"

 

(The light drowned him before he could speak.)

*

(He dreamt of snow.)

 _“You’re safe here,”_ a voice said, and Tony looked down at his open chest, at the smashed reactor and exposed muscle.

Above him, Steve snarled, and lifted the shield up again.

_“Tony, listen to me. Everything is OK.”_

(The shield flashed silver and red as it swung down.)

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wazungu is the plural of ‘mzungu’, a common word for ‘foreigner’ or ‘white skin’ in the Bantu language of the African Great Lakes. Black Panther seemed to confirm my vague feeling that in the MCU, Wakanda is the north-west part of Tanzania, i.e. west of Lake Victoria, albeit with significantly different topology! 
> 
> James Farley is referred to as a kingmaker for his role in orchestrating the gubernatorial and presidential elections of FDR.
> 
> Warfarin is a blood thinner, used for basically everything Tony has ever had on screen (a replacement or mechanical heart valve, atrial fibrillation, a heart attack, and a variety of other blood clots). I am astonished that he's not on it already. It's dangerous in conjunction with a concussion because it can lead to bleeding in the brain.
> 
> (I love M'Baku, that is all.)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, apologies for the missed week, I was on holiday. Please enjoy this longer-than-usual chapter as recompense.
> 
> Content warnings: some mentions of child death, canon-typical violence.

He was asleep.

It hurt, somehow. There wasn’t enough room in his head for everything, as if his skull had shrunk, or maybe his brain had swelled full of too many thoughts. It certainly felt like he had too much in there, too much presence for a single mind.

He _knew_ he wasn’t alone, and wasn’t that the kicker? Because that knowledge had been volunteered, it had been surrendered to him as a peace offering. It had to be because the thing inside him had announced itself, had made itself known, and not because he had figured it out or learned to tell the difference of what was his own fear and that brought to him by someone else. It had to be, because he knew, now, that what he’d thought before hadn’t been his own mind at work, and he still wasn’t sure if he’d be able to stop it from happening again.

_Fuck off,_ he told the thing-that-wasn’t-him, trying to push it out. It was like slamming himself into a brick wall, if the brick wall kept trying to catch him and cushion him and stop him from flailing, wrapping itself around him what seemed to be an attempt at comfort. _Fuck off, there’s no space here. Leave me alone!_

_“Tony, you have to listen to me, you have to calm down, you’ll hurt yourself - Tony, listen, calm down, the doctors are on their way - shit, Barnes, give me a hand -”_

Hands landed on him, and that hurt as well. Someone he cared about was shouting, or screaming, or crying, and it mattered, it _mattered_ , but he couldn’t do anything. There wasn’t enough room in his head for him, and the thing-that-wasn’t-him was still there, still trying to cocoon him in softness, and he shoved harder at it, almost frantic. _Get out get out GET OUT-_

_“Agent Barton - do you know his code status - sir, you need to step away, you need to let us prep him for surgery - do you have his medical proxy -”_

The hands were abruptly pulled away, and something hard and unyielding snapped into place instead, pinning him down. He strained against it, panicked, his breath coming is short, sharp gasps.

(The light was in his eyes and he squeezed them shut, trying to block it out, trying to breathe, trying to talk himself back from a gurney in another cave, years ago, the restraints inadequate against the terror and the pain.)

_“No! No, stop it, you’re hurting him! You’re hurting him, stop it stop it stop it! Let him go, stop hurting him!”_

_“Christ, Barnes, take the kid, I’ll stay with him -”_

His hand moved restlessly, twisting in the restraints, trying to open and close, looking for the warmth that had held him down before. (It had been better, that warmth, even though it had hurt. He’d recognised it. He wanted it back.)

_“Clint, take his hand -”_ That voice sounded like the thing inside him felt, shaken and scared. (It’s a child, he realised. For all that he’d thought it frightening and strong, part of that fear was because it was _so_ strong, and still just a child, with all the helpless, capricious impulses and hates a child would store up and hoard.) _“I’ll stay with him, outside the room. I’ll make sure he’s OK once he’s under. But until then, you need to -_ ”

(The screaming still filled his ears, childish and terrified and growing fainter with distance. Was he moving, or was the child? Either way, someone was trying to separate them.)

The hand clamped back down over his, warm and familiar. On his other side, there was a sharp pinch, and something cold pushed its way into his arm. His chest was jostled as cold, wet things were attached to him, and there was a strange hum starting up around him. It sounded a bit like his repulsors powering up. That was what had to be so comforting, he thought. It had to be that sound, and not the hand clamped around his.

_“Tony, listen, you’re gonna be OK. Can you hear me? You’re gonna be OK, I’m right here...”_

_“OK, let’s induce -”_

The world dipped and fell.

_It hurts,_ he thought, bewildered. _It hurts, what’s happening?_

The screaming was growing fainter and fainter, as if the world was easing away from him. As if he was falling, and if he looked up he could see the surface of the water receding, the light flickering and fading. He strained against it, trying to drag himself back up to where the screaming was coming from, to where he could hear the child in severe distress. _Steve,_ a part of him suddenly realised, and his heart gave a lurch. _That’s Steve, that’s Steve and he’s frightened and he’s hurt -_

_You have to stay calm,_ the thing-that-wasn’t-him said, and there was something frantic in the way that it wound itself around him, wet and pained and grasping. _Steve is fine, Tony please - please, just stay calm. Please -_

_“Good, let’s get him into the OR -”_

Darkness swamped him, mottled red and black.

*

He dreamed.

The child was dead, and it was his fault. He must have looked away, or he must have failed, somehow. He must have done something wrong, because the child was dead, and it was on _him._

_This isn’t right,_ he thought, kneeling by the small body. _I wouldn’t do this. I would never do this._ The child’s eyes were open and milky-white, and looking up at him blindly. _I would never -_

_I know. Tony, you’re dreaming. This isn’t real. This isn’t true. Tony, Tony, please -_

There was someone else in there with him.

He was on his feet without remembering how he got there, and he was looking for the source of the voice. That voice… it was a threat, somehow. He had to… he had to…

_Mister? Are you OK?_ A small hand slipped in his, large blue eyes blinking up at him. _Mister?_

He hesitated for another moment before abandoning the voice and squatting down instead to be face-to-face with the kid. _Are you OK, kid? I thought - I thought -_ He looked at the tear-streaked face and wiped a hand over it gently. _Hey, come on now, no more tears. Everything is fine._

The child folded himself into his arms. _But it’s not,_ the small voice said, trembling. _It’s not. You killed me. You were angry with him, so you killed me._ He blinked up at up Tony, betrayed.

Standing above them was Captain America, resplendent in his uniform, his eyes hard.

_Isn’t that right,_ the child said, Captain America said, and Steve said, _his_ Steve, the Steve that had smiled at him from across his workshop, that had sparred with him long after everyone else had gone to bed, the Steve that he’d looked at and thought, _maybe, maybe..._

_Steve,_ Tony said, helpless. He wasn’t sure which of them he was addressing, but all three looked at him with those same blue eyes. _Steve, I would never -_

A hand reached around Tony and grabbed the arc reactor embedded in his chest. _I would,_ Barnes said, and yanked out the reactor.

(He dies on the icy ground, his metallic heart in Barnes’s hands, the small child crying, Steve frowning down at him, and Captain America turning away, disappointed.)

_Tony, no, that’s not what -_

*

He was back in Siberia, and Steve was straddling him. It was the Steve from his dreams, and he suddenly thought, _I’ve had this dream before,_ and then Steve was leaning down and kissing him.

_I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,_ Steve said, and for a moment, Tony thought he meant the kiss.

(When he looks down, he can see his chest gaping open, the shield slicing him clean in two. Steve is watching him softly, gently, and then leaning down to press his lips to Tony’s once more.)

*

He was in Afghanistan, and Ho Yinsen’s hands were steady and capable as he worked through the night.

Tony stared up at him, barely conscious, unable to speak or scream through his exhaustion. He could see the concentration on Yinsen’s face as he gently positioned the heavy magnet, encasing it in something slimy and stinging before readying it to slide it in. (Antiseptic, he would think later. Yinsen must have bathed him in the stuff. How the hell had Yinsen kept him from getting infected?)

_This will hurt,_ Yinsen said to him, reaching into Tony’s chest once more. His hands were gentle as they nudged Tony’s heart to one side, cushioning the magnet in its new home. _I hope you do not remember this._

(He does. He remembers every moment, true and imagined.)

*

He was in Siberia, and Steve was laughing as he -

*

He was in Malibu, and Pep was unmoving on the floor of the house as it slid into the ocean -

*

He was in Germany, and Rhodey was falling, falling, _falling_ -

*

He was -

*

He -

*

_Shhhh. It’s OK, Tony. They’re just dreams. They can’t hurt you._

Tony sprawled on the ground, looking up at Wanda. Her hair was a loose halo around her face, her eyes red. She held the scepter in her hands.  _We both know that’s not true._

She nodded a little at that, her face pale as she looked down at the scepter. It shimmered and faded into dust, sifting through her fingers. _All right. Yes. But these… these are not true dreams. These are nightmares, only. We both know this._ She looked at where a hard-eyed Steve was bringing down the shield on Tony’s chest, at where Barnes was wearing Obie’s face as he reached for the reactor. _There is always some truth to our fears. But what you are dreaming - it did not happen. Not like this._

_No?_ Tony thought bitterly, pushing himself up on his elbows. He followed her gaze to the tableau. _How would you know?_

She stepped towards the figures, touching Steve’s face, tracing the outline as it shimmered and changed. _Because this is what Steve sees._ She stepped back.

Steve was still straddling Tony’s hips, his hands on Tony’s chest. Tony’s eyes were wide and fearful, and there was blood, so much blood, Steve’s hands slippery with it as he clamped them down over the wound, trying to staunch the flow. _Please,_ Steve’s lips formed over and over again, like a prayer. _Tony, please, I’m sorry -_

_Steve,_ that Tony said, staring up at him, betrayed. Blood spilled down from his mouth. _You did this. You killed me. I trusted you, and you -_

The image changed. Steve was on a train (a train? Why a train?) and Barnes was falling into the snow, a broken ragdoll with his neck snapped. Steve followed him into the snow but it was too late (it was always too late). Barnes’s lips were moving, blood spilling down his chin, his eyes milky-white with death. _You did this. You killed me. I trusted you, and you -_

And then Steve was in a room and Howard was there (so impossibly young) and an older man, someone he trusted, someone he cared about, and Steve wasn’t fast enough (he was never fast enough), and the older man was falling, blood on his hands and in his mouth, and he was looking up at Steve - _You did this. You killed me. I trusted you, and you -_

And back, back again - back to Siberia, Tony stripped out of his armour and not a threat at all, helpless and broken in the snow, wearing a Howling Commandos uniform, looking up at Steve, who hadn't done enough (he could never do enough, he could never stop this) - _You did this. You killed me. I trusted you, and you -_

_Stop!_ He was on his feet suddenly, shoving at her, at the false image. His hands were icy where they touched the edges of it, trying to erase it. _Stop, that’s not true! Stop lying to me! That didn’t happen!_ That couldn’t have happened. Because if Steve had also been dreaming of this - if he hadn’t just dusted himself off and called it a fair price for walking away with his best friend - then, then - 

Wanda looked away. _He dreamed about it every night, before he went away. The child… I do not know what he dreams of. I do not look. But your Steve? The Steve in your dream? It was all he could think about. It was hard to block it out. The nightmares I showed you, and -_ The image shimmered again, and Steve was in his sweatpants and a T-shirt, settling his hands on a smiling Tony’s hips, drawing him closer for a kiss. _And I do not know which dream hurt him more. Sometimes, I believe he prefers the nightmares._

_That never happened. We never - why are you - stop, please, stop -_

(Steve was smiling up at him, hair sleep-tousled and eyes bright. He was reaching up to catch a hold of Tony’s hand. _Stay in bed for a little longer, sweetheart, come on. Reality can wait just a little longer…_ )

Her hand landed on his shoulder as he knelt, his face turned away.  _He is always too_ late, she said quietly,  _or not strong enough, or failing in some other way, and those he loves die and it’s his fault. It’s always his fault._

_Yeah, well,_ Tony said, hoarse. He clenched his fists. _Guilt’s a powerful thing._ The dust around his knees rose up, choking him.

(Yinsen stared up at him, the light fading from his eyes. _Don’t waste your life._ )

_...Guilt,_ Wanda said sadly. Her face was wet. _Sure._

(The darkness claimed him again. He did not fight it.)

*

He slept.

*

“Tony?”

His head felt like someone had tenderised it with a meat hammer. “Ow.” His voice was barely above a whisper, dry and papery. “What the fuck happened?” Something cool nudged his lips and he opened his mouth to accept the ice chip. _Aaaah, bliss._ It was wonderfully cold and soothing against his parched tongue and he sucked hungrily. He drifted off for a moment - longer, maybe, then resurfaced. He'd missed something, maybe... “Hmmm? You say something?”

“You have a concussion, there were some complications,” the voice said again patiently. “Hopefully all mended now. Do you remember where you are?”

No, he fucking didn’t. Why was Barton there? Wasn’t he in - oh, wait. No. Hmmm. Siberia, Ossetia, Wakanda, the sword guy - _Steve_ -

He cracked one eye open and peered up at him blearily. “The Lonely Mountain?” He hazarded, mumbling around the ice chip. “Did I dream that? There was a - guy with a sword…”

Barton’s mouth was a thin line. He looked exhausted, the black eye from before in full bloom. (How long had Tony been out, for it to have developed like that, all mottled purples and blues?) He leaned forward and fussed with Tony’s pillow, then thumbed the pebble on the nearby table again until it flashed. “Yup. You remembered. Well, OK, you’re all caught up.” He looked like he wanted to say something else but he looked away instead, eyes red-rimmed, rubbing a hand across the stubble on his face. “You got knocked on the head, got concussed. Would have been OK, but -”

“The warfarin,” Tony realised with a sinking feeling. Oh, _shit._ He thought he remembered - He raised a hand carefully, checking his own forehead for any lumps or scars, then further back. He couldn’t feel anything amiss, but… maybe he’d mis-remembered. Surely surgery would leave marks, no matter how targeted the keyhole? “Is it all OK? I think I remember - there was surgery, right? Something like that? Was it OK?”

Barton glared at him, as if this was somehow _Tony’s_ fault. He fed Tony another ice chip. “It very nearly wasn’t. D’you know how dangerous blood-thinners are with a concussion? You had a fucking cerebral haemorrhage, for fuck’s sake, you coded twice before they were able to stabilise you! Why the hell didn’t you say something?”

Tony was abruptly too tired to have this fight. Not while he was recovering from surgery, inside a fucking _mountain_ , and his head was throbbing with every beat of his heart. Later, maybe, he’d be able to muster up some righteous indignation, some curiosity about why he wasn't dead, but right now… “There didn’t seem an appropriate moment, and you’ll forgive me if I’m not especially keen to hand out my medical history to people that were trying to kill me not too long ago.” His stomach clenched, bile rising. _Cerebral haemorrhage_... Fuck. He’d take literally _anything_ over that. If he didn’t have his mind, what was he? 

Would he even know if there was a difference? He thought he remembered someone - Maximoff? - there with him during the surgery, or maybe just after… but maybe it had been a dream. Maybe he just hadn’t been able to separate out one nightmare from another.

(How the hell had he survived?)

“And with that attitude, there isn’t a court in the land that would convict me,” Barton snapped. He fed Tony another ice chip with as much passive aggression as he could muster. “Congratulations, you were the first patient at the not-yet-complete Jabariland Clinic. Dhakiya had to scramble a neurosurgical team from Birnin Zana because we couldn’t fucking move you, on account of your brain being turned into Swiss cheese! You’ve been in a medically-induced coma for 24 hours, Tony, we thought you were fucking _dead_!” There was something frantic in the way he said that, the cup of ice chips clattering, Barton’s eyes wide as if bracing himself against the possibility of it, as if even saying it could make it true.

_If this had happened to him instead - if one of them had died on me -_ “And yet you keep yelling as if me getting thwacked by Samurai Jack was in any way my fault,” Tony said through the sudden nausea. “Where’s Steve?” 24 hours… who had been watching the kid?

Barton’s shoulders slumped. “I’ll get him.” He staggered to his feet, swaying a little. He put the cup of ice chips down on the little table beside the ever-present pebble. “He was - he’s _still_ \- frightened out of his mind. So be gentle with him, OK?” His hand landed on Tony’s shoulder as he turned away.

Tony watched him go, noting the line of Barton’s shoulders and the slight stagger in his step. He’d been in a fight himself, he realised. The black eye, the stiffness in his movements… they must have run into some trouble out there before they’d been called back. He still didn't know what they'd found, where everyone was. Why hadn’t Barton gotten his injuries seen to? If the Wakandan medics could carry out keyhole neurosurgery in a fucking _mountain_ , they would have been able to fix him up, no problem.

_Yeah, maybe. But you’ve been out of it since you landed here, which is, what - two, three days? God knows what’s happened in the meantime._ If he was hallucinating Maximoff of all people trying to soothe him…

Barton returned a few minutes later with an armful of sniffling child. “Mister!” The kid sobbed, and more or less flung himself at Tony. Only Barton’s steel hold on him prevented him from landing on Tony’s chest, face-first. Instead he was lowered gently to Tony’s side so he could crawl up to wrap an arm around Tony’s neck, Barton’s admonishment to be gentle going unheard. He looked up at Tony, disconsolate, face streaked with tears and snot. “You’re alive!” His voice was shaky with hiccuped sobs.

Tony winced and tried to extract an arm from under the blankets so he could pet him. “Yup. 100% alive, 99% of the time. You OK?”

Barton shrugged at that, looking a little uncomfortable. “He’s fine. Tired - he wouldn’t sleep. Wouldn't let go of you. Screamed every time we tried to coax him away. Holding on to him while you were under was a piece of work, let me tell you. If he wasn't full of supersoldier serum, Barnes would still be sporting the scars.”

Tony’s grip on the kid’s shoulders tightened. After everything that had happened, after every concern Tony had raised… “You left him with Barnes?”

Barton looked even more uncomfortable, if that was even possible. “Someone had to watch you. Wanda had to be there for the surgery, and you were agitated, didn't recognise anyone else, so I had to be there, you know, to... Everyone else is still out in the field, tracking down Aragorn and trying to get ahead of the next attack. It's OK, the Dora and some of the Jabari guards were with him the entire time.”

What did that - oh.

_Well, fuck._ His brains really must have been scrambled if he was this slow on the uptake. He remembered Maximoff and Barnes from his dreams, sort of - remembered trying to get away from them, anyway - and having a whole bunch of strangers around probably wouldn't have helped. With Rhodey still back at Birnin Zana, that left precious few people his brain wouldn’t count as a threat.

Strange that Barton seemed to be one of them.

But - “Maximoff? What do you mean? What did she do?”

Barton looked away. “Let’s talk about that later.” He nodded at the child in Tony’s arms. “Look.”

_Oh, you bet your ass we’ll talk about that later, Legolas,_ Tony thought, irritated. If they’d done what he was now fairly certain they’d done… Some fucking dream, if Maximoff had been his cruise director... He looked down at the top of Steve’s head, at where his fingers were carding softly through the blonde hair. Sometime in the last few minutes Steve’s breathing had evened out and he’d slumped back into sleep, dozing against Tony’s chest. “Huh,” Tony said, a little surprised. “You weren’t kidding about him being tired.”

“He was screaming his head off for, like, a _lot_. I was worried he’d have to sedate him. Seemed to think you were a gonner, no matter how many times we tried to reassure him.” Barton bit his lip. “Before the med team arrived, before we could get you under, you were panicked, moving around a lot. We needed to restrain you to stop you from injuring yourself, and we couldn’t risk sedation with surgery looming. So Barnes and I were holding you down until they could get some restraints set up, and - you didn’t react well to that, or to the restraints -“ Barton’s lips were thin and white, his hand trembling as he rubbed slowly at his jaw.

Of course he wouldn’t have reacted well to being held or strapped down; Tony knew his nightmares well enough to know exactly what he would have flashed back to. “What happened?”

“Steve - he saw. He thought -“

Oh, Christ. “He thought you were trying to hurt me,” he said slowly, horror dawning. He hadn’t dreamed it, then, the child screaming and screaming… And then they’d left him with Barnes, while Steve’s only constant in this strange, terrifying new world was taken away. “Christ, Barton.” He stroked a hand over Steve’s head, noting the tear marks on his cheeks and deep circles under his eyes. The poor kid must have been scared half to death.

“Yeah. Wasn’t pretty. Barnes - he didn’t have too good a time of it, either. I think whatever it is Steve said to him really upset him.”

Tony had a pretty good idea of what that ‘whatever’ would have been. And given where things were between Barnes and Rogers before Barnes went under again… _What an absolute shitshow._ He sighed. _Goddammit._ “He OK? Barnes?” Or was he sequestered away, having his own world and sanity falling apart… _It’s operational information,_ Tony reasoned. _I have to know, for the kid’s sake. That’s all._

Barton looked away. “Not really.”

_And you?_ Tony wanted to ask. _Are you OK?_ Because it was obvious even to him that Barton wasn’t. That Barton hadn’t been sleeping, and hadn’t had his wounds tended to. And where was everyone else, other than ‘deployed’? Not that he was in any fit state to be of much help, of course… “Well, given everything, I guess we’ll have to raincheck that round at the gym, huh?” He said instead, tentative. He wouldn’t have thought that Barton would care that much, but…

_But if he’d been the one with his head cracked open, and Nat not around, then…_

Then Tony would have been the one pacing nervously outside his operating room and trying to get a hold of his wife and kids.

Barton looked back at him, bruised and exhausted, something infinitely weary in his eyes. “Yeah. Guess so.” He braced his hands on his knees and forced himself to his feet. “I’ll leave you to get some rest. I’ll let Rhodes know you're out of the woods, and I'll check on you in a bit. You’re officially out of post-op with flying colours, so the medical team will be by in a little while to do their assessment. You should probably sleep a little in the meantime.”

That did sound tempting. For all that Tony had slept away the last few days, he was exhausted. And with Steve already asleep… but - “have there been any further attacks? By Lady Vengeance or by our sword-wielding friend?”

Barton paused by the door and shook his head slowly. “No. Looks like Dr Foster’s theory might be right.” His lips quirked in a tired smile. “Get some rest, Tony. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

_Wait,_ Tony wanted to ask, _Wait, what theory?_ But his eyes were already closed, sleep dragging him under, Steve a warm and comforting weight against his chest.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my headcanon for why Rhodey isn't magically healed by the Wakandan tech is that:  
> 1) Shuri's amazing lab was trashed completely in Black Panther, so although there is still advanced tech throughout Wakanda, it's not as miraculous as we saw in the film until the lab is re-made.  
> 2) Ross was only recently injured in the film, and they were able to operate immediately. Whereas Rhodey has had several weeks of his injury, and the damage would therefore be more permanent. Not to say that they can't help, and they will, at least a little, but it's not a magical "oh, and he's healed!" moment.
> 
> Which also explains why Tony had such an atypical medical experience in Jabariland. Based on my recent re-watch, the medical facilities in the mountains were basic, at best. I'm guessing that one of the things that both T'Challa and Shuri would have felt strongly about would be to extend medical tech to the people who saved T'Challa's life, so let's assume that a Jabariland Clinic was in the process of being established when Tony et al crashed on M'Baku's doorstep.
> 
> I did my best to keep Tony's injuries both vaguely in line with what someone suffering bleeding in his brain as a result of a concussion would experience, and the fast healing time that Wakandan surgery seems to enjoy. (I'm also drawing a distinction between medicine and surgery - just because someone is technologically advanced doesn't mean that their medicine is, hence Steve's mostly typical experiences of interventions, but their surgery is probably a lot more refined and therefore the recovery time a lot more rapid.)
> 
> Comments are love.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know when you have a plan that you'll sit down and have some 'me' time to write and write and write? And then RL happens. Well, RL has been kicking my arse and I'm just relieved I managed to get some words down at this point tbh.

Tony had been woken from a thankfully dreamless sleep after six hours and informed in no uncertain terms that he had to man up and face the inevitable:

“Two days? You have got to be joking!”

It turned out that not even the most advanced nation on Earth had been able to do away with post-op recovery times.

“Two days at the very minimum,” the doctor said oppressively. She scribbled something on her tablet that Tony strongly suspected included the words, _problem patient_. “The initial signs are that the surgery was successful and I am pleased with your progress. However, we need to ensure your body has sufficient time to heal from the trauma, not to mention we need to assess you prior to full release.”

It turned out that _assess_ meant someone would observe Tony doing every single a human could be reasonably expected to do - three times - and would give him a pass/fail for complex tasks such as tying his shoelaces and spelling _accumulate_. 

“I gotta tell you, doc, I’ve never had to sit an exam on going to the bathroom before,” Tony tried, his voice a bit shaky despite the bravura.

The doctor didn’t even looked at him as she tapped away at her tablet, perched on the edge of his makeshift hospital bed. “You’ve never had brain surgery before.” After a moment she relented and looked up. “Look, Dr Stark. As I said, I believe the surgery was successful and we were able to repair all the damage without any lasting effects.” She grimaced. “But there is a protocol for these things, and despite how unorthodox this entire procedure has been, I would be remiss if I were to discharge you without ensuring that you are fully recovered and able to care for yourself - _and_ your child.” 

For some reason, hearing a stranger put it like that - _your child_ \- was the oddest feeling. Dhakiya hadn’t thought that Steve was his, and of course all the others knew the situation, and… well, he wasn’t too clear where he himself stood on the matter. So hearing a stranger make a wrong assumption shouldn’t have made that much difference. Anyway, it was a moot point; for all intents and purposes, Steve was his responsibility. Whatever Tony did, he couldn’t escape the fact that he’d taken on a responsibility in signing those papers. He knew that, of course, and it made it a lot simpler that so far his duties had been primarily limited to reading bedtime stories and saving the kid from being shish-kebabed. But until they could turn him back…

_You killed me. You were angry with him, so you killed me._

Tony shook his head to clear it. “I - all right,” Tony said, hating how uncertain he sounded. “I’ll do the physio.” Because, really, what were his options? The Wakandan court had ruled him able to take care of Steve; if he was badly hurt, they could easily rule the other way. And if Steve was with someone else, some _where_ else, helpless, with that sword-wielding maniac hunting him down… It didn’t matter if Steve wasn’t _his_ , Tony had a duty to stand by him either way.

“Don’t worry, doc, I’ll make sure he does his exercises,” Barton assured the doctor, squeezing Tony’s knee.

He really was going to murder Barton. “Why are you still - Legolas, I said you could stay if you _kept quiet_ -” He should have known that this was not something that would be physically possible. All he’d wanted was to make sure that someone was keeping Steve occupied during the consultation...

“Quiet as a church mouse,” Barton said, and mimed zipping his lips. He had managed to get the majority of his injuries seen to so he wasn’t walking wounded, at least, but his black eye seemed to be working itself out the natural way, complete with yellow-green blotching across half of his face. He looked like someone had taken a frying pan to his head.

On Tony’s other side, Steve managed a small giggle at this and then hid his face against Tony’s chest. 

_Well, that’s something, at least._ He looked down at Steve’s head and fought the urge to sigh. The child hadn’t let go of him since being deposited on Tony’s chest a few hours previously, and Barton’s supervision had had to be conducted in or around Tony’s bed. At least Steve was back to interacting with Barton; for a while, Tony had worried that he’d had one shock too many. _Looks like me not being dead has won Legolas back a few points._ That, or at this age Steve was shit at holding proper grudges. _Ah, my young padawan, how that skill shall develop and blossom. Do not worry, soon you shall be as bitter and jaded as the rest of us._ Steve peered at Barton with one eye and then immediately hid his face against Tony’s side again, giggling. _OK, maybe not soon, but certainly before you’re thirty._

The doctor stood, slotting the tablet against the foot of the bed. “OK, well, I’ll leave you in the therapist’s capable hands. Agent Barton, you’ll be around, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am. Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on them.” He squeezed Tony’s knee again. 

Tony waited until the doctor had left the room to raise an eyebrow at Barton. “Don’t you have a couple of serial killers to hunt down?”

Barton shrugged. “The others are already tracking down all the available leads. Well, OK, in between helping out where needed - there’s this thing in northern Burkina Faso, near Gorom-Gorom, and - Anyway, neither one of you is in any fit state to defend yourselves, so…”

 _Burkina Faso. You couldn’t fucking stay out of ECOWAS, could you?_ At least they hadn’t dragged Maximoff with them; the last thing Tony needed was trying to fight an ECOWAS extradition to Nigeria. “There are guards,” Tony pointed out. “Many, many unfeasibly tall and broad guards. You’ve bottlenecked all entry points pretty effectively here; D’Artagnan either has to portal in and risk ending up in solid rock, or fight his way through the entire cast of the Gladiators. You could go and play hero with the rest of them, although God knows how you managed to con Vision into going along with that.”

The clear defensive advantage of Jabariland was part of the reason why Tony was OK with being confined to bedrest for a little bit. Well, not _OK_ per se, but less infuriated, maybe. At least he was doing something vaguely useful in keeping the kid calm and safe while the doctors scanned him and checked his spelling and peeing. But he didn’t need a babysitter. Not while everyone else was out there evidently playing hero and chasing down leads he hadn’t been made privy to. (He wasn’t bitter about that. Nope. After all, he’d been concussed and then unconscious, so it was entirely reasonable for everyone else to be off doing whatever it was while he had someone grading him on his ability to walk straight.)

“Yeah, but Wanda and Barnes are also here, so…” Barton shrugged. “The others don’t need me right now, they have it in hand. Dr Foster has a theory and we’re waiting to see if it pans out; there’s a whole lot of waiting until then. And I figured the two of you needed a friendly face.”

Yup, he was in hell.

“And you’re the best you could come up with as a ‘friendly face’?!”

OK, in retrospect, the fact that Barton wasn’t allowed to smack him in the head quite clearly didn’t prevent him from pinching Tony in places no man should be pinched. He totally should have seen that one coming.

Tony swore, freely and at length, and then kicked Barton as hard as he could on his retreating arse. 

“You said a bad word, you said _lots_ of bad words,” Steve said, muffled against Tony’s side, sounding beside himself with glee.

“I’ll get a couple of things sorted and come back in a few minutes,” Barton promised from the doorway. “Do you think you could manage some food?”

Tony considered. “No. Yes. Maybe a sandwich of some sort. And bring me Jane Foster’s notes!”

*

“So, I look away for one moment and you fall on your head, is that how it is?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Barton has a big mouth.”

“Well, I’m not gonna fight you on that, but in this instance it’s no bad thing.” Rhodey frowned, peering at him as if he could assess the state of Tony’s brain through the projection. “How’re you doing? And the kid?”

“I’m fine, honeybear, don’t fuss. I came through surgery with flying colours and they’re just doing their post-op thing. The kid is fine; he got scared when I went down, but seems to have perked up a bit now.” He wrapped one arm around the kid and hoisted him up, as if for inspection. Steve and Rhodey eye-balled each other for a moment before Tony let Steve drop back down on the bed again. He tipped his head up inquiringly. “And you? What did the doctors say?”

Rhodey smiled. “Well… no promises, but their initial assessment seems to be that there’s definitely some improvements they can eke out. The damage doesn’t get too severe until the sacral spinal cord, so…” Colour flooded his cheeks. “Well, they think - you know. With a couple of procedures, I might be able to get rid of the catheter.”

“Are you kidding me? Rhodey, that’s amazing! What about sensation? Control? D’you think they can -” Forget the braces; if the doctors could do their miracle thing and make Rhodey _walk_ -

“Tones, come on,” Rhodey said, his mouth twisting in a wry smile. “You know it doesn’t work like that. Honestly, I’ll be plenty happy to have a working dick back. I’m relying on you to get me walking again, but trust me, getting me anything else below the belt -” His smile suddenly dropped off. “Crap, I keep forgetting - the kid -”

On cue, Steve twisted against Tony’s side so his face was filling the projection. He gave Rhodey the stink-eye. “You said ‘dick’!”

 _Oh, shit!_ Well, that was to be expected. Only a few days in, and he’d already corrupted baby Captain America. “He’s… he’s had quite a few people use colourful language around him,” Tony said weakly.

For a moment, Rhodey and Tony stared at each other over the kid’s head. Then, “wow, he sure is the spitting image of his older self, huh? I’m gonna leave this one in your capable hands, Tones; don’t worry, I’ll check in with Pep for you -”

“Rhodey, don’t you dare -” 

The connection cut off.

After a moment, Steve looked up at Tony. “What’s a dick?”

Groaning, Tony covered his face with his hands.

 

*

Barton did not bring him Jane Foster’s notes, or anything remotely useful. (Tony was starting to get paranoid that everything was being withheld until he could prove he could tie his shoelaces.) He didn’t even bring Tony a sandwich, instead depositing a rainbow shake - complete with straw - in front of him. 

Tony stared. “It’s green.”

“Only _bits_ of it are green. Those are avocado. The orange bits are mango. And the red bits are some sort of local berry.”

Tony stared at the rainbow shake. “I’m not drinking an avocado-mango-berry shake.”

Barton raised an eyebrow. 

“What?”

“You drank kale shakes back at the Tower, Tony, OK? You drank shakes made out of _soup ingredients._ I really don’t think you’re in any position to -”

“So, what is it you needed to tell me about Maximoff?” Tony interrupted. He set the shake to one side gingerly. (It wasn’t even the green bits that he objected to. It was just… his stomach felt a trifle queasy and he didn’t really want to chance it just yet.)

Plus, this line of questioning had the bonus of making Barton blanche and squirm as if someone had put a hook through him. “Er…” He hovered uncertainly over the chair by Tony’s side, as if contemplating bolting.

Tony gave him a full twenty seconds of maximum glare before finally relenting. “Other than her walking in my dreams, that is.” 

“You -” Barton gaped at him, then shut his mouth smartly. “You were lucid.”

“I was lucid,” Tony agreed. “Well, OK, partly. But enough to know that someone was there.” He looked away for a moment. “You know that wasn’t OK, right? For either one of you to do. Not after everything.”

Barton’s jaw clenched. “We didn’t have a lot of choice,” he muttered, visibly trying not to fidget. “And with everything - there wasn’t time to reach Rhodes, so…”

 _Yeah, I figured._ “You know that’s not how _that_ works either, right? The doctor decides. Not whoever is closest.”

Barton’s jaw clenched so much Tony was half-expecting to hear his fillings crack. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t real keen on having you stroke out on me through fear before we could get you under, and my options were limited. Forgive me for doing the best I could with a shitty situation, OK? Mea maxima culpa.” He looked down at where Steve was idly unwinding the loose threads from the blanket covering Tony’s bed. “Hey, kiddo. How about I get you something fun to do, huh? Maybe some crayons and pencils?”

At Steve’s enthusiastic nod, he got to his feet.

“You’re trying to buy his love with art supplies,” Tony said irritably, carding a hand through Steve’s hair and feeling obscurely guilty over the expression on Barton’s face. “It won’t work, you know. He’s just using you to get his crayon fix.”

Barton rolled his eyes. “Just because you can’t keep your ward in crayons doesn’t mean the kid should suffer, oh concussed one.”

“I guess.” He hesitated. He really hated to do this, but… “Hey, Legolas?”

“Yeah?”

Tony studied the wall three inches above Barton’s head. _Man up, for God’s sake. He probably saved you from a stroke and real damage. The least you can do is -_ “... Thanks. For, you know.” He shrugged his shoulders minutely. “Making that call. I owe you one.”

After a moment, Barton snorted. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just making sure you keep our appointment in the gym.” His lips quirked in a smile. “Drink the fruit shake, Tony.”

(He drank the damn shake. It was actually pretty good.)

*

A few hours later, Tony was ready to declare that the worst part of recovery was the God-awful vomiting. It had kicked in about ten minutes after he’d finished the shake (it had taken him an hour) and had yet to fuck off.

“Urgh, I feel like I have a permanent hangover,” Tony told the basin.

The nurse _humpf_ ed at him and handed him some tissues with which to wipe his mouth. “I will not enquire as to your basis of comparison,” she said, looking supremely unimpressed. Goddamnit, everyone in this fucking country hated his guts, and basically 99% of the population hadn’t even met him yet. Tony had never been so insulted in his life; wasn’t it good manners to at least _meet_ the capitalist pig coloniser before hating him? “Here,” the nurse said, offering him a bottle of something that smelled minty. “For the aftertaste. Swish, then spit.”

OK, maybe she didn’t _completely_ hate him. The minty drink was a million times more effective at getting rid of the foul taste than anything he’d found stateside. “What’s in this stuff?” He surrendered the basin and the peered at the remnants in the bottle. There appeared to be green things floating in there.

“Mint.”

“And…”

“Mint.”

He gave up. “Right.” He leaned back in bed and let her position the pillows so his head and neck were supported. “What’s next, Nurse Ratched?”

“My name is Ndiliswa,” the nurse said with a scowl. “Next, the therapist will come, and you will go to the bathroom.”

“ _Again_? For God’s sake, how often do I have to do that before he passes me? Any more repeats and I’m gonna start wondering if the interest is purely professional!”

Right on cue, the therapist appeared, as if summoned by Tony’s sheer recalcitrance. “Don’t worry, this is the last one,” he said, dropping his bag on the floor beside Tony’s bed and pulling out his tablet. “Then we can move on to personal grooming.”

Tony dropped his head back on the pillow with a groan. “I can’t fucking wait.”

In the corner, Steve’s head shot up. “You said a bad word,” he said around a mouthful of crayon. “I tell you, and I tell you, and you keep saying the bad word.”

 _...Perfect._ With luck, he’d start repeating _that_ one as well, and Tony’s day would be complete. 

Beside him, similarly ensconced in a child-sized seat and carefully colouring in age-appropriate pictures, Barton smirked. “Yeah, Tony, you said a bad word. Shouldn’t you be setting a better example?”

As the therapist opened up his bag of torture devices and foam pads, Tony stared up at the ceiling. “There is literally no one in the world I don’t hate right now.” Almost as soon as the words left his mouth he wanted to call them back. If there’d only been adults in the room, the vociferous hate he had for all forms of physiotherapy would probably have been fine (and dear God, he was going to get Rhodey a punching bag that could clip on to the chair, or a stress ball, or _something_ , because Tony had been at their mercy for two days and he was already ready to shoot himself). But...

A small hand landed on his arm, followed by something cold and sticky being put in Tony’s hand carefully. “I brought you a crayon, so you don’t get sad,” Steve said in a tiny voice. 

Tony made the mistake of glancing across at the small, earnest face peering intently at him. Steve’s hair was a floppy mess over his forehead, and he was still dressed in the red Iron Man T-shirt that had evidently been declared his favourite. (How they’d managed to get one in Jabariland, he had no idea - although he had a sneaking suspicion that Dhakiya had sent an entire care package of the child’s things the moment that Okoye had relocated them.) 

Steve seemed to be waiting for Tony to make eye contact before sniffling with extra pathos. _Dammit._ At this age, Tony estimated that Steve’s kicked puppy look was lethal at twenty paces. “Except you,” he finally amended, and then glared at the face Barton was making in the corner. “You’re more childish than the actual child, you know that?”

“In my defence,” Barton said, laughing, “I did actually know that.” He lifted up the colouring book. “Are you going to help Steve with his colouring in after your physio? I’m sure that’s good for his recovery, right?” His eyebrows were raised meaningfully, as if he was hinting so heavily that even Vision would be able to spot it.

 _Oh no you don’t._ He’d had quite enough of Barton’s meddling. “I really don’t think that -”

The therapist looked up from where he’d been scrutinising Tony’s chart. “Yes, that would be fine.”

 _Colouring in._ Well, OK, probably that was more for the kid’s benefit than Tony’s; and sure, Tony could probably stretch to that for half an hour or so. He’d never done it before, and it might even be fu- “Is that an _Iron Man colouring in book_?”

Barton’s smile got wider. “As it turns out, Amazon Prime delivers to Jabariland. Who knew?”

Oh, Tony was going to fucking _kill_ him.

*

Barton left them alone with the art supplies after a couple of hours, presumably going off to do whatever it was unconcussed people did: reading Jane Foster’s notes, planning a trap for their evil portal-maker, passing notes to Rhodey, Tony wasn’t very clear on this point and didn’t much care, as long as he was left alone to nurse his headache and try to get some sleep. _If they’re not gonna let me help, they could at least show me the courtesy of letting me sulk in peace._

He had managed precisely one hour of uninterrupted sleep - Steve drawing peacefully by his side with intense concentration - before he was rudely woken up by - _Huh. That must be the Lord guy._

“You know, in some parts of the world, you rescuing me means we’re married now,” Tony’s mouth said without any input from his brain.

M’Baku blinked at him from where he stood in the doorway, his mouth open in surprise. “Which parts?”

 _Dammit._ “Some parts. Many parts - look, what I mean is, thank you for, you know.” He waved a hand vaguely. He still wasn’t clear on what the politics were here, other than Barton’s previous comments that there had been a whole lot of shouting (and his own private conviction that T’Challa owed this guy somehow). “... Everything.”

“Hmmmm,” M’Baku said, which seemed to be neither here nor there. He sat down in the chair beside the bed, on the opposite side from Steve, his hands relaxed by his side. Tony did not fail to notice how carefully he positioned himself, so as to look non-threatening. (He did not delude himself into thinking this was for his benefit. No, if he’d been on his own, this conversation would perhaps be going differently. But with Steve by his side…) “I have not kept myself as informed of the outside world as perhaps I should have,” M’Baku said slowly. “But I have heard of you, Tony Stark. I had thought that you did not have children.” His expression shifted minutely. _Too busy being one yourself,_ the curl of his lip seemed to say.

Tony coloured a little at that, looking down at Steve. _Well, he’s not wrong._ It was mostly luck that had kept him from fatherhood. He winced at the thought of subjecting a helpless child to the mess that was his life. Oh, sure, any child of his would be loved and cosseted and would want for nothing. But they’d also be hounded relentlessly by the press, unable to live a life of their choosing, and would be forced to deal with a parent that had not-inconsiderable chance of being blown up, magicked into space or impaled by aliens. If Tony had had kids… well, he was fairly certain that being a father and being Iron Man was fundamentally incompatible. Barton had hidden his kids away and left the raising of them to his wife. That wasn’t an option for Tony now - not that it had been much of one when he’d been in a relationship with Pep, of course. 

No, Tony wasn’t father material. (No matter if he might have - once - wished otherwise.) It was probably for the best. Who’d trust him to raise a child, anyway? He smoothed Steve’s hair back from his face, smiling at the instinctive squirmy wriggle this prompted. “He’s not mine.”

“That is not what the Dora say. They say, and the courts say, and unless your little problem is solved, the papers will say, and then, oh, I might even read the paper on that day, just to see your face.” M’Baku leaned in, showing the point of his teeth in a wolfy smile. “Your compatriots are in Gorom-Gorom, hunting down abducted girls. They have left you here in my care, under my protection, and they go off, and for why? To play at heroes? Do they even have a plan, Stark?”

At this point, Tony was not entirely sure what the answer was to that question. “Absolutely,” he said confidently. “They need to lull both assailants in a false sense of security and then…” He trailed off delicately. “Why, d’you have an alternate solution?”

M’Baku smiled and looked away, making a big deal out of examining his fingertips. “Hmmm. Ask me again later, mzungu.” He laughed at Tony’s expression then leaned in again, expression softening as he pointed at Steve’s drawing. “That is an interesting picture, Steve. Who’s that?”

Steve looked up at Tony shyly and turned a little pink, shaking his head and hiding against Tony’s side instead of answering. 

Tony scrutinised the drawing and took pity on the kid. _Well. That’s… that’s a little cute._ He’d bet his bottom dollar that Barton had suggested it as a topic to the kid. _I will definitely have to kill Barton._ “That’s me, right?”

Steve nodded, looking pleased at this. “I drawed it because you’re sick, and my friend always draws me pictures when I’m sick. And then I drawed him ones back!” He beamed, as if this had been a panacea.

 _Don’t ask which friend, don’t ask which friend…_ “And it’s a very nice picture, Steve. I look very… majestic.”

Steve carefully drew the faceplate on as an exaggerated clown-frown. “You’re angry because the bad guy came and was a bully,” he explained. He paused for a second then added a goatee around the mouth slot, framing the frown with scribbled peach fuzz. 

M’Baku looked like he was trying hard not to laugh. 

_Oh, for God’s sake._ Between the doc, Barton, and now M’Baku… _Fine, fine, I surrender._ “OK,” Tony amended, scowling. “Maybe he’s a _little_ mine.” 

(The Steve in his dreams looked up at him with accusing eyes. _You killed me. You were angry with him, so you killed me._ )

Tony looked down blindly at the small child cuddled against him. From this angle, he couldn’t see anything of Rogers in the small face. It could have been any child, anyone’s son…

Steve looked back up at him with those same blue eyes and smiled.

_I am so fucking screwed._

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The post-op recovery time is indeed pretty fixed, and I wasn't inclined to hand-wave it away. Let's view it as an opportunity for some Tony & kid!Steve cuddles.
> 
> Comments are love.
> 
> Edit: as someone asked - Nurse Ratched is a reference to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.


	14. Chapter 14

Tony had no illusions about M’Baku’s goals in coming to see him. _Do they even have a plan, Stark?_ He snorted. _Subtle. What was next, heavy winking and a nudge to the ribs?_ That being said, he couldn’t fault the man’s intentions. _Well, at least someone here has some balls. That, or integrity, one of the two._

He glanced across at where Barton was lingering in the doorway with a constipated look on his face. _Yeah, you just sit there and stew, Legolas. I’m gonna get to you in a sec._ The look on Tony’s face did not seem to be reassuring; Barton frowned, expression growing more pinched, and looked away.

Satisfied, Tony squatted down on the ground to check on Steve. “You OK, kiddo?” he asked. “The doctor’s just going to do some paperwork, and then we’ll be done with the house arrest, I promise.”

Steve looked up at Tony from his position on the floor - surrounded by loose paper and his favourite crayons - and nodded. As long as Tony remained in his line of sight, everything was fine; no tears, no screaming. 

Tony wasn’t sure whether the clinginess was a normal reaction, or something to get checked out. He’d rather gone along on the assumption that the parents in the room - which seemed to include M’Baku, interestingly - would tell him if there was something wrong with the kid. So far, though, both M’Baku and Barton had both just spoken gently to Steve, but otherwise left him to his own devices. Surely they would have said something if there was something seriously wrong?

Still. The kid had been having nightmares even before he’d narrowly escaped being shish-kebabed, and now he kept Tony in his line of sight at all times. Was that normal? And his play, that didn’t quite seem right, either. Barton had brought across some toys along with the crayons and other art supplies, but Steve hadn’t shown any special inclination to investigate them until Tony had upended the entire box that morning in an effort to find something to keep him occupied. There were Legos, and marbles, a baseball and catcher’s mitt, something else that seemed designed to just make noise (honestly, Barton’s kids were getting their very own drum kits the moment this whole mess was resolved) and Steve had dutifully looked at them all and then… tidied them. 

He didn’t seem to understand how to play with them, Tony thought, and had half-wondered a couple of times whether he should step in, and, well _show_ him. But the boy had seemed happy enough with the art supplies, and so, and so…

_One problem at a time._ First, he’d tear Barton a new one. Then, he’d figure out what to do with Steve. _I get us back to the US and and it’s you, me, and the best child therapist money can buy, kiddo._

He patted Steve on the head, ruffling his hair, and got back up. “Well, what’s the verdict, doc?”

“Dr Stark, I hope that you will be sensible and take all reasonable precautions,” the doctor said, signing off on the discharge papers with a scowl on her face. “Do not, under any circumstances, hit your head on anything. Repetitive head injury syndrome is a very real risk in your case. You should have your regular doctor examine you as soon as you are back in the US; I have taken you off the anticoagulants for the moment which means that the risk of heart attack and blood clots due to the atrial fibrillation is elevated. I recommend several weeks of restricted movements -” she rolled her eyes at Tony, who had started to pull his shoes on the moment she had signed the paperwork, “but I will settle for a promise that you will get emergency medical attention if you feel any further disturbances in your heart rhythm.”

Tony held up one hand in the scout’s salute, the other busy sliding his shoes on. “I promise. Any heart attacks whatsoever and I’ll definitely have someone stick a thermometer in me.” 

She glowered at him and turned to Barton, who was busy examining his shoes in an effort to give Tony the illusion of privacy. “Agent Barton. Can I trust you to notify us if his condition deteriorates? He is cleared, but the risk of blood clots without the anticoagulants cannot be eliminated entirely.”

Barton looked up and smiled at her humourlessly. “I’m at your disposal, ma’am. Don’t worry, he so much as sneezes and I’ll get him to a doctor if I have to carry him bridal-style.”

Tony flipped him off. “I am vetoing that right this moment, Legolas, don’t you even think about it. You try to lift me and I will do serious damage to your manhood.”

“How d’you think M’Baku got you down here, anyway?” Barton picked idly at his nails as the doctor left the discharge papers on the desk and exited. As the door closed behind her he shifted a little, moving up off the door frame so that he was blocking the door more effectively.

Tony did not fail to spot this. _There we go._ He’d wondered whether Barton would make him work for it, pretending that everything was fine and it was all one giant coincidence. “Yes?” He asked flatly, standing up. “You wanted to say something else?” 

“OK, so, first off, congrats on not being dead, must be good to, you know, have the paperwork for that.”

“Spit it out, Barton,” Tony said tiredly. “I’m really not in the mood to play the brain damaged idiot any longer.”

Barton looked away, the corner of his mouth twitching. “In my defence,” he started, “you were genuinely concussed for a while. Not to mention that whole bit where you were, oh yes, bleeding in your brain and having _brain surgery._ ”

Tony waved that away. “Semantics. Now sit down and explain yourself, or let me get in the suit before I hit you. You heard the doctor, you’re not allowed to hit back.”

“I’m not allowed to hit your _head_ , she said nothing about kneeing you in the balls.” Barton looked at him for a long moment before groaning and sitting down at the table, watching warily as Tony joined him. “All right. Fine. So we should have told you.”

“ _Should_?” Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his hands clenched into fists underneath the table, conscious that Steve was watching all of this with wide eyes from his vantage point on the floor. “I think it’s a little bit more than _should_ , Katniss. How would you react if I was dangling one of _yours_ as bait?”

“All right.” Barton held up his hands in the classic ‘mea culpa’ gesture. “All right. Yes, you’re right. We definitely should have told you. But - OK, again, in my defence, you were concussed, and then, you know, with the whole having your brain all exposed like that -”

“It was keyhole surgery, not trepanning,” Tony said irritably. “And you should have said something the moment you guys decided on this bright idea of yours, _not_ wait until -”

“M’Baku spilled the beans?” Barton snorted. “Yeah, he wasn’t very keen on us not mentioning it. Said it was dishonourable.”

“Well, he was right on the money on that front, but no, I’d already figured it out.” M’Baku’s comments had been the final bit of evidence, but he’d had quite a bit of the information laid out for him already. The others, ridiculously visible in Burkina Faso, almost jumping up and down yelling _we’re here, we’re all here and the child is unguarded!_ The fact that both Maximoff and Barnes - the two who had had the most success fighting the swordsman - had been permanent glimpses out of the corner of Tony’s eye since he’d regained consciousness; not close enough to frighten Steve, but close enough to defend them if there was an attack. Dhakiya sending through the child’s things when the parcel would have been easily traced. And, as a final cherry on the trifle, Barton, ordering children’s toys from Amazon Prime and having them be delivered in Jabariland. _Look, look, the child is right here, he’s right here and he’s unguarded!_ And there was no way to portal in, of course, not unless the swordsman wanted to risk entering solid rock. So he’d have to fight his way in, following the trail laid out so plainly it was practically glowing in the dark.

So, yeah. Tony had figured out what they were doing. Admittedly not long before M’Baku had more or less confirmed it with his (rather admirable) attempt to let Tony know that something was wrong. (He _had_ been under some impressive drugs, after all, so he was gonna cut himself a little bit of slack for being slower on the uptake than normal.) But even so there was a big difference between knowing what was happening and being able to do something about it.

Barton was silent for a moment. “Ah. OK.”

Because - of course - it didn’t matter if Tony had figured it out. He wasn’t going to expose Steve to more danger by attempting to move him if there was still a chance he’d have a stroke mid-flight, not unless they were definitely under attack. _If you’re in a minefield, you stay still and you wait for rescue,_ his HEAT instructor had told him when Tony had first started doing visits to fun places like Iraq and Afghanistan. _But what if someone is shooting at you?_ He’d asked, smart-mouthed as always. _Then you move. But not until you’re being shot at, do you understand? You always,_ always _go towards the place where there is less risk._

Well. He hadn’t always listened to him, but in this instance, with a child dependent on him… It was safer to stay put and wait for the all-clear from the doctor. 

And maybe - potentially - judge for himself whether the plan his erstwhile team had put together actually had any chance of keeping the kid alive.

“Look.” Barton folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “You have to know that there’s no risk, right? M’Baku would never have agreed to anything that would put his people - or a child - in danger. The trail leads to an uninhabited peak a little way from here; there’s a million tunnels in there and we should be able to contain your swordsman when he turns up. You - and Steve - were never in any danger. We’d never do that. _I_ would never do that.”

Tony hummed under his breath. “That would be a lot more convincing if you didn’t have Barnes and Maximoff standing guard. And you haven’t explained _why_ , Barton.” There was bitterness in his voice he made no effort to hide as he stood up too quickly, the chair toppling over with a crash. _Yup, you’d never do that, sure. I believe you. Absolutely. And I bet there’s a bridge you just can’t wait to sell to me, too, right?_ “I get that you don’t have any special loyalty to me; fine, whatever, we can agree to - look, you can be an absolute bastard to me, I don’t care. But -” He really, _really_ wanted to punch that pinched expression right off that bastard’s face.

“You said a bad word,” Steve whispered, pale and miserable where he’d hurriedly stood and grabbed a hold of Tony’s leg, and Tony -

(Steve’s knuckles were white, Tony realised suddenly. His knuckles were white because he was clinging so tightly to Tony’s leg, using all his strength to hold on. Because Tony had kicked the chair away and now, now -)

Tony stopped.

“Steve,” he said helplessly, looking down. (He hadn’t even felt the kid grab a hold of him, let alone -) “Buddy, it’s OK -” He knelt down and gathered the child up. “It’s OK, it’s fine, don’t be scared.” The child was small and cold and rigid in his arms, his grip on Tony unyielding. “We’re not gonna fight, I promise.” He stood up, Steve wrapped in his arms. “This isn’t finished,” he said to Barton, who still had that same look on his face, worried and shamefaced in equal measure. “Don’t you think for one minute that I’m gonna let this go. This is too far, Barton. How could you?” 

Barton had the grace to look away at that. “I thought it was a bad idea, and I still do,” he muttered. “I argued against it. I wanted to tell you; Christ, Tony, you have to believe that. But you’d just had fucking brain surgery! I knew if I said something you’d be trying to get into the suit, and -”

“So why are you carrying it out of if it’s such a stupid idea?” Tony asked, half-turning away. Steve was still too rigid in his arms and he hoisted him up a little, trying to position him in a more comfortable way. “You just finished telling me that there’s no risk, now you’re telling me that you disagreed with the plan? You can’t have it both ways, Barton. Why are you going along with it if you argued against it?”

“Because we do not have any better ideas,” Maximoff said from the door. 

Tony turned, tensing. Maximoff and Barnes were both there, as if summoned by magic, or by… OK, well, that just confirmed that he was being surveilled. _Oh, look, it’s a gathering of all of my favourite people. Throw in some Justin Hammar and it’ll be my best day ever!_ “You know, you really have a funny way of trying to get people to trust you,” he said. “You make bait out of everyone you’re trying to make peace with?”

Maximoff looked discomforted at that. “I…”

Barton came to her rescue. “Look, Tony. The portals, the two assailants… they are all using magic or tech we can’t match or figure out. It was bad enough when all we were trying to do was to get ahead of the attacks and to work out how to turn Steve back. But when we knew he was a target…” 

Barnes stirred. “We knew we could not keep him safe any other way. We would have to control the nature of the confrontation.” His face was expressionless, giving nothing away.

_Oh, what a piece of work._ “This was your idea,” Tony said, appalled beyond words. “You came up with this.”

“No, we _all_ agreed -” Barton started, as if he hadn’t disavowed any planning of his own before. 

It would have been Barton against, Tony realised, Barnes for, and then which way would the rest of them have split? He’d bet his eyeteeth they hadn’t told Rhodey, because if he’d known, he would have been contact. Hell, he would have been _here_. No, they wouldn’t have told Rhodey. Lang might have been against it - he had a kid, if Tony was remembering correctly - and although M’Baku had clearly agreed to go along with it, he hadn’t agreed with keeping Tony out of the loop. The others, though? Christ, he had no idea. Would Romanoff have backed Barton or Barnes on this? Wilson? T’Challa? _Vision_? Who’d cast the deciding vote, with Tony, Steve and Rhodey all out of the loop?

Barnes nodded slowly. “It was my idea,” he said hollowly. He managed a short laugh. “When you fight those committing inhuman acts, you need to… be willing to meet them part-way. And I have experience of that. Of making the hard decisions. With both of you incapacitated, someone needed to say it, to make the hard decisions.” And that someone hadn’t been Barton, presumably. 

_It was Romanoff,_ Tony thought, suddenly certain. Romanoff would have backed Barnes, and the others would have fallen in line, willing or not. 

Barnes made himself meet Tony’s eyes, something flat and hard in his gaze. “There is minimal risk, Stark; Wanda and I can fight this swordsman. We can defeat him. There is very little danger, and… and it is what Steve would want,” he said, in the tone of a commandment, as if saying made it so.

Something was very loud in the room. After a long moment, Tony realised that it was his own breathing, harsh and wet. His hands were clenched in Steve’s T-shirt as he hugged the child to his chest. “Well, now, that’s a problem, Robocop. I don’t give a rat’s ass about what Rogers would want. His ‘wants’ are what got us into this mess in the first place, so no, I don’t care if you think he’d rather be filling out his spandex again. That’s not justification for putting a kid in danger! It’s the same attitude that got you all into this mess - get your mission accomplished and hang the collateral damage; well I’m not letting you sacrifice anyone else on the altar of getting your own way!” He ran out of breath, staring at Barnes furiously. God, he hated the man. Hated him beyond what his hands had done, what he’d been forced to do. Hated him because he was squarely in Rogers’s corner and that, right now… 

Right now, that made a threat again the kid. 

_Christ._ Why hadn’t he realised sooner? No wonder Barnes hadn’t shown any special interest in the kid, he was probably eager to get his buddy back, not some snot-nosed kindergartener. And Tony had thought that - despite everything - Steve might be safe with him, that Barnes might put Steve first… 

_That’s the thing about people. They’ll always find new and exciting ways to disappoint you._ He should have known better. Dammit, he should have known better! It was human nature, and it’s not like he was above it himself. Wouldn’t he trade Barnes, Maximoff, Lang, the whole fucking lot of them, for just ten more minutes with his mom? Wouldn’t he trade them all for the chance to bring back those he loved?

Maximoff made a sharp sound suddenly, then covered her face with her hands, looking mortified. _She didn’t mean to do that,_ Tony thought, and looked at her sharply. “What’s so funny?”

She shook her head, her expression changing into one of dismay. “I - oh. I didn’t realise. I’m sorry. Stark - Tony - I’m _sorry_. I didn’t realise. I would have - I would have said something -”

“Didn’t realise what?” Tony asked, tired. _OK, well, you may be the juicy meat being dangled in front of the grizzly, but come on, work the problem. What are the options here? Is there any way to draw out either of the attackers without compromising the kid?_ Clearly, they would be tracking him somehow - presumably the mountain would be enough to block the signal; not even radiation could escape if you shielded it with enough rock. Dammit, he needed to talk to Jane Foster...

“That you think of him as two people.”

Tony froze.

“That is true, isn’t it? You don’t think of him as a shrunk version of Captain America. There are two people, and you think that we have endangered one for the benefit of the other.” She sounded confused, and a little sad. “But… you know that is not true. We are all working towards the same goal, here. We need to stop these attacks, and we all want Steve back.”

Something cold gripped Tony’s chest. He looked down at Steve’s messy blonde hair, at the way he hid his face against Tony’s chest and tried to block out the words. _We all want Steve back,_ Maximoff said, as if it didn’t mean erasing this version of him out of existence. 

“Tony,” Barton said, his voice hesitant, looking between the two of them. He’d subtly angled himself so that he was incrementally closer to Tony, facing off against Barnes and Maximoff. “Look. I agree with you. It’s a shitty position. But we don’t have a better plan. This is the most heavily-defended place we can think of. We’ve bottlenecked the entrances, and we’re confident that we can funnel the attacker through to where we need him to be. Vision and Scott are being as visible as possible in Burkina, making it look like the Avengers are occupied elsewhere, and OK, Sam’s with Rhodey - he’s having those surgeries the royal surgeon offered - but Nat and T’Challa are here, as are the Dora and the Jabari guards. And us, obviously.” Barton’s voice softened. “Tony. I wouldn’t put either one of you in danger if I could help it. We just… this is the best plan we have right now. And I didn’t want - I knew if I told you, you’d suit up, and you’d - if you were on the field, if you took another hit to the head -”

Tony closed his eyes, the cool metal soothing against his skin. “... You should have told me. I don’t care if I was concussed, or post-op, or bleeding from my fucking brain. Something like this? You should have told me.” 

There was a long silence. Barton’s hand landed gingerly on Tony’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “... Yeah,” he said. He sounded as though he meant it.

Steve shifted in Tony’s arms, looking up at him with wet blue eyes. (He didn’t say anything.)

*

The worst thing was, Barton was right: it might be a shitty plan, but they didn’t have anything better available.

“I need a copy of all the data you have,” he said, and Barnes nodded. “Everything, Barnes. I’ve had enough of this cherry-picking.”

“You’ll have it.” He nodded towards the bedside table, where the pebble still sat. “I will have it uploaded. And…” he cleared his throat, suddenly sounding awkward. “Have you listened to Steve’s audio entries yet?”

No. _Too many Steves, not enough time._ He had his hands full of the mini version right now; he really didn’t need to hear all about how the adult Steve was just so disappointed that Tony couldn’t get over his little hang-ups about, _ooooh, being lied to repeatedly and then having a shield smashed into my chest._ “I’ve been busy. My brain was split open, in case you missed that. Grey brain goo everywhere.”

Barnes nodded. “Alright. But, Stark, listen -”

“I really have to get on to this, Barnes.” Maximoff was already inching away, her eyes on where Steve still had his face buried against Tony’s shoulder.

Barton was right about something else, too - Tony opened up the HUD the moment Barnes and Maximoff left, Steve sat next to him at the little table, his red crayon clutched tightly in his grip.

“Is there literally any way I can talk you out of this?” Barton asked. He sounded… tired.

Tony glanced up. Barton was rubbing a hand over his face, fingers skirting the edges of the bruising that had still yet to completely fade. _Shoulda given him a new one._ “No,” Tony said, opening up the small toolkit he had in one of the inner suit compartments. It was wholly inadequate to do a complete repair job, of course, but would be enough to get the suit operational again - he hoped.

“Right.” Barton was silent for a long moment. Then, “alright, what can I do to help?”

“You’re not going to tell me that I’m looking at this all wrong, that I need to look at the bigger picture?” Tony didn’t look up from the open faceplate and exposed HUD.

“No.” 

“No?” He looked up, surprised.

“No.” That pinched expression was back on Barton’s face. 

Tony paused, looking at him thoughtfully. _He really does look like shit._ “You really didn’t like the plan?”

Barton sighed and sat down on the edge of the table. “Well, my plan did involve the mountain, but it also involved Scott sitting on you in his giant form until the rest of us figured out a way to track down both D’Artagnan and the crazy shish-kebab lady, and then, you know, have a traditional fight,” he admitted. “None of this trap malarkey. I was voted down.” He shrugged. “I still think my plan was better. Less chance of you doing something stupid, for one thing.”

“A traditional fight?” Tony raised an eyebrow.

“... For instance. Other fight options are also available.”

“I’ll bet.” He looked down at the HUD innards. “Out of interest, what’s the plan once you drop a cargo net on Inigo Montoya and drag him to our dastardly lair?”

The flat silence told him all he needed to know. “... Right.” _Leave an assassin to plan an ambush, and you end up with dead bodies._ He dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “I’m really, _really_ going to need to talk to Jane Foster.” _And probably M’Baku. Because even if we can capture this guy, if we can’t contain him until we figure out what we want to do with him…_

“I’ll set it up,” Barton said, and got to his feet.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RL is stomping on my head with big giant boots and this chapter did not want to cooperate at all. Sigh. 
> 
> Kudos to all those who figured out that Tony being out of the loop was odd/deliberate/both. And yeah, I figured that, on paper, the 'let's trap the bad guy by dangling some bait!' plan would look good, but you stick a kid in there, and all of a sudden it sounds less appealing. That said, Tony and Clint are the only two Avengers who are looking at Steve and seeing him as a child separate from the adult, rather than just a pint-sized version of Steve to be restored to adulthood immediately. Hands up who thinks this will cause problems further down the road? (Yup.)
> 
> HEAT training is Hostile Environment Awareness Training; it's generally used by NGOs but I'd imagine that Tony would have had something similar prior to being allowed to go to any war zones by his SI Board of Directors. The minefield directive is absolutely true - you stay put, you call for help, and you let the experts get you out. If someone is shooting at you, then, and only then, should you risk moving. 
> 
> Comments are love.


	15. Chapter 15

“She said this was everything?” Tony asked, scrolling through the notes. He’d put Steve to bed and stayed up to review the data packet that Barton brought him. Barnes and Maximoff had retired to their perimeter - joined, apparently, by Romanoff - and as it was the middle of the night, hopefully both Rhodey and Wilson were asleep back in Birnin Zana. As he was at least a week behind everyone else in intel, Tony wasn’t going to waste time on sleep. One of the graphs had a measure of the trace radiation in Steve’s system since his arrival at Birnin Zana - he’d been right about the unobtrusive monitoring throughout - as well as a comparison to the samples taken by the hospital. The samples stayed steady, but Steve’s measurements had a spike for some reason part-way through. That was odd.

Barton looked at him carefully. “She did. There a problem?”

“Ask me again in a bit.” The prelim work he’d seen back in Birnin Zana wasn’t a patch on this. Tony frowned, skipping back to the earlier notes to compare. The radiation in Steve was stronger than the other kids, coming in well over the safe dosage, but it didn’t seem to have injured him any. Did it have something to do with the de-aging? Or was it all a side-effect of something else? And - _Huh._ He bit his lip. _Levels holding steady at 534 mSv. Increase of 133 mSv at 05:24 West Coast time four days ago - that’s strange..._ “This all Dr Foster’s work?”

_Yeah, no._ There was something else to the conclusions, some _one_ else. Tony was not as up to speed on Dr Foster’s work as he would have liked, but he’d read enough to be able to spot her logic and train of thought easily enough. And this was… not it. He skipped ahead to some the hypotheses laid out. _Yup, that’s definitely someone else’s work._ And judging by just how far ahead this someone was - and how elegant some of their ideas were - he was starting to get an inkling of just who might have read in Dr Foster on their little problem. “T’Challa send one of his own to bring her in? You know, if whoever wrote this is willing to travel, I’d be more than willing to work with them in New York. They don’t need to be stuck out in the wilds of New Mexico.”

“She’s actually in California,” T’Challa said from the doorway. He smiled down at the tablet held loosely in Tony’s hands. “Dr Foster is visiting our newly-established centre in Oakland.”

Tony got to his feet smartly. “Your majesty. Haven’t seen you for a while.” He stopped just shy of accusing T’Challa of avoiding him.

Judging by the narrowing of T’Challa’s eyes, though, it had not gone unnoticed. “I was detained elsewhere,” the king said smoothly. “Affairs of state.” He offered Tony his hand to shake. “It is good to see you back on your feet, Dr Stark. I was … concerned.”

_I’ll bet._ However this thing played out, it wouldn’t look especially good to the UN to have a major US industrialist expire on Wakanda’s doorstep. Not if T’Challa’s programme of internationalisation was going to go ahead. “I’m grateful for your assistance. Your guards are formidable.”

T’Challa smiled at that. “Yes. That is a good word for them.” He nodded at the tablet. “But you had a question?”

With a sidelong glance at Barton, Tony squared his shoulders. “I did - I do. Whoever built Barnes that arm - they’re the one helping Dr Foster on the Einstein-Rosen bridge work, on what’s happening with Steve, right? I want to meet them. I am… not happy… about having the kid used as bait in this plan, and even less happy about being kept in the dark on this. And I am not convinced that - even if everything goes hunky dory - we’ll be able to contain the attacker.”

T’Challa frowned. “I see.” His gaze seemed to rest over Tony’s shoulder, on Barton, disapproving. “My apologies. I was under the impression that you had been briefed on this.” There was a pause, during which time Barton did not say anything to defend himself, but met T’Challa’s gaze steadily. After a moment, the king continued. “It was not my intention to withhold information from you. You are welcome to meet with my sister, if you wish. She, too, would like to make your acquaintance.” A corner of his mouth quirked. “It is good for her to work with Dr Foster; she has not had anyone she could collaborate on this level with, before. It is difficult, when they are so young, and so brilliant.” He held Tony’s gaze. “I am sure you understand.”

Well, that was clear enough. _Do not put a foot wrong, or I will end you,_ may as well have been spray-painted across T’Challa’s forehead. Tony couldn’t remember anything about the king’s sister, or even that he _had_ a sister. Although it was obvious that she was young. And - judging by her work - a one in a generation mind. _No wonder he’s paranoid,_ he thought. Howard and Obie had both similarly guarded access to Tony when he’d been young and impressionable. At the time, Tony had thought it another set of rules to chafe under; in retrospect, he could see it for the attempt it was of structure, of guidance. _When you cannot match them in wits, you have to give them a set of rules to rule themselves by._ Well, if the young princess had someone as sensible as T’Challa looking out for her, he was sure she’d have a better time of it than he had. Especially if T’Challa’s view of ‘suitable company’ had thrown her in the way of Jane Foster.

“M’Baku wants to be part of the discussions,” Barton cut in quietly. 

T’Challa gave him a sharp look. “Oh?”

Barton chewed his lower lip. “He…. he concurs with Tony’s assessment. He wants to know what restraints the Princess has come up with.”

There was something strange in the king’s gaze at that, almost triumphant. “Then I suppose we’d best reconvene.” He turned to the guard at his back. “Ayo, please set up a call with my sister. We have much to discuss.” His nose wrinkled. “And… invite M’Baku to join us.”

*

“I’m just sayin’, the arms are impressive. How much do you bench, d’you think? More than Barnes? I’m betting it’s more than Barnes.” Tony whistled to Barnes as he walked into the conference room. “Hey, Elsa, d’you think you can out-bench his lordship?” In Tony’s defence, he hadn’t slept since… well, it’d been a while.

Barnes stared at him blankly from his seat in the far corner. “What?”

M’Baku, for his part, was less than amused to be roused out of bed at three in the morning for a conference call. “If you insist on prattling senselessly, mzungu, I shall have you gagged.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking tired, and slumped into the nearest seat. “I may opt for that in any case.” He glared at T’Challa, sat by his side. “He does not cease, this one. None of them ever shut up, whine whine whine. How do you stand it?”

T’Challa shrugged minutely and Tony grinned. He was starting to get the hang of M’Baku. Talked tough, looked scary, especially when he folded those impressive arms of his, but - “Nonsense, I’ll need dinner and flowers before any gagging, I’m not some cheap floozy,” he said breezily and flopped down in his chair. “Anyway, I already swooned on you, the next grand romantic gesture is on you, big guy.”

M’Baku pointed a finger at him, fighting the twitch in his lips. “You -!”

On the screen, Jane Foster raised an eyebrow. “I can call back later?” _When you’re done with your flirting,_ the eyebrow seemed to say. 

Next to her, practically bouncing up and down in her excitement, Princess Shuri cut in. “No, we can’t call back later, he might be unconscious again!” At Tony’s exaggeratedly offended look, she shrugged. “Well, you do get hit on the head a lot. I keep trying to make contact, and you keep being unavailable, it is very inconvenient. Maybe you should reinforce the suit in that area?” She turned to T’Challa, smirking on Tony’s right. “Brother, I shall send you the designs for a helmet for him.”

“My suit is plenty rein- look, that’s neither here nor there. Can we get back to the terrible plan?”

“Please,” Barton said fervently from the corner.

Tony threw him a dirty look. “You are not allowed to speak, like, _at all_.” He looked around the room, at the gathered ragtag Avengers and Dora Milaje, at the frowning Jabari guards. “In fact, can we please have quiet from the peanut gallery until we finish?” He turned back to the screen. “Apologies, Princess. Please, continue. The terrible, no-good plan built from your beautiful data.”

She looked a little discomforted at M’Baku’s scrutiny, but at Dr Foster’s encouraging look she nodded. A screen unfolded between her and Dr Foster, their calculations spooling out across it. It was pretty much what Tony had expected - a whole lot of work on the radiation from the portals - but there was something else in there. Tony squinted at the notes on the bottom right, which seemed to be a little… odd. _Is that - wait. I know those markers._ “What’s going on there?”

“Oh!” Shuri said, brightening. “Well, that’s when we irradiated with gamma radiation. You can see that -”

“Why,” Tony said slowly, each word carefully enunciated, “are you irradiating Steve’s blood with gamma rays?”

Shuri blinked at him. “To see - what would disrupt the existing signature? We needed to know how to hide him, if the tracking was active.” She looked at him a little uncertainly. "It's why I suggested taking him to M'Baku - the mountain would cloak him..."

His head hurt. He pressed his hands to his face and sat back down in his chair, trying to marshal his thoughts into something useful. Behind him, he could hear Barton whispering loudly, “see, it’s not just me who has a headache from looking at it,” to an unimpressed Barnes.

He resisted the urge to reach back and add to Barton’s headache by thwacking him around the head. It had taken him three hours to go through Dr Foster’s - and Shuri’s - results and conclusions, and nothing in the data set was remotely encouraging. The portals caused significant disturbances to organic matter in the vicinity. The disturbances manifested in radiation signatures, which were, of course, trackable - hence the swordsman’s ability to track Steve down in Birnin Zana. The samples of Steve’s blood collected at the hospital had continued to exhibit those same radiation signatures, and Barton had collected samples from the attack site they had been too late for while Tony had been unconscious - same result. But why the hell was the swordsman after Steve in the first place? What possible use could he have with him that he couldn’t accomplish with any of the other dead, and more easily accessible, victims?

“OK, sure, but… I don’t get why any of it was necessary. Why do they need Steve? If they needed an irradiated body, why not use corpse number twenty-eight? Or, hell, just make a few more corpses? And if it was something specific about Steve’s blood, there are now samples of it from here to fucking _Oakland_ , how did they zero in on him so precisely?”

Okoye straightened up beside Barnes. “There is no strategic value in using the child,” she said slowly. She tipped her head to one side, concentrating. “Unless there is a link between the creator of the portals and him that we cannot see.”

Romanoff had been silent the entire time. She had barely made eye-contact with Tony since arrival, choosing to sit by Barnes at the back, frowning at the data. Tony would bet hard money that the whole lot of them had done their best to assimilate the data but it had been ultimately impenetrable, and they’d gone with a standard bag-and-tag approach. Sound in the short-term, possibly, but not necessarily in the long-term, not when they didn’t know what they were dealing with.

Hell, they _still_ didn’t know what they were dealing with. But -

“He didn’t go after the blood samples,” Romanoff said quietly. She looked up. “The attacker. He could have had any of the corpses. Or, if he wanted Steve specifically, he could have gone after any of the blood samples, if he was tracking the radiation. But he didn’t. Why didn’t he go after the easier target? Why not just portal in a bomb if he wanted Steve dead, why go in himself?”

_He wants Steve alive. Steve is useful to him alive._ That much was obvious. But if he was working with the portal creator…

Wait. “Wait,” Tony said. He flicked back to the earlier set of data in his data pack, comparing. “Wait, hold on.” He found it. “The spike in the radiation levels. Doesn’t that seem...”

Shuri leaned forward. “Yes, I thought so too. External, right?”

Jane was shaking her head. “But that doesn’t correlate to anything, the child was in Wakanda at the time -”

“But it _does._ ” Tony frantically converted the time zones in his head. “05:24 local time - that was in Oakland, right? So that would make it...middle of the afternoon, Wakandan time.” He turned to T’Challa. “Right around the time -”

“The attack happened.” T’Challa turned ashen-faced. “The radiation increased when the attack was happening. The child - the child is still linked to the portal?”

But Shuri was shaking her head. “I don’t think so, it’s not a permanent link. I think the link is reactivating when the portals re-activate.”

“Like a passive tracker,” Romanoff said. Her face was hard. “Do you know whether the location of the portal makes a difference?”

Tony stared at the screen, not answering.

“Yeah,” Romanoff said grimly. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

_Goddamnit._ They’d have to test it out, somehow, but Tony already knew what they’d find. It was the only theory that fit all the facts. Steve wasn’t just a victim of the portal-creator. He was a direct link back to her.

Shuri cleared her throat. “Well… I was also working on a way to restrain the sword guy’s powers, I could talk you through that…” Her eyes flickered to Maximoff. “They’re… they’re pretty similar to the bracelet…”

M’Baku coughed. “King T’Challa. May I speak with you in private?” He raised an eyebrow.

T’Challa nodded. “Shuri, Drs Foster and Stark, please continue.”

Silently, the two of them exited, leaving the others behind. Tony looked at Shuri. “Princess. Do I want to know?”

Shuri tipped her head to one side and smiled a little sadly. “I think you are enough like my brother to guess.”

He really hated aphorisms. _Goddamnit._ He shook his head. Nothing he could do about it now; better make use of what time he had with Jane Foster and the Princess. “Like the bracelet, huh? That blew me away, by the way, it’s phenomenal work. Talk me through it?”

Shuri brightened again.

*

“So.” A couple of hours later Barton sat down next to Tony and looked across at where Steve was still sleeping quietly. It was an hour or so until dawn; not that they’d be seeing the sun, of course. But the artificial lighting would brighten automatically then to simulate it. That was, if D'Artagnan didn't choose this time to launch his big attack follow-up. “Was the big confab everything you dreamed it would be?”

Tony had the data packet in his hands, he was looking at the spike in radiation levels. _When the portals opened…_ This was technology beyond anything he’d seen, barring one specific nightmare example, years ago, when the skies had been torn open. _What if it’s the tesseract?_ Or something tied to this Convergence that Dr Foster was investigating? Both of them, not to mention Loki’s sceptre, had been able to open Einstein-Rosen bridges. What if it was another artifact like that one? Or - worse - another powerful entity wielding one of them as a weapon?

They had no idea what this psycho wanted, other than to make floor art with children’s bodies. All they had to go on were the remnants of the portals, and one dead eyewitness. _What did he tell us, other than that it was a woman?_ For all they knew, it could be another Asgardian. Hadn’t SHIELD run into a who posse of them back when Thor had first come to earth? Presumably there was more than one way to come to earth. _Assuming that the dead aren’t simply her way of turning a doorknob._

He shook his head to clear it. “That’s the king’s sister, huh?” He set the data packet aside. “She’s something else. Do I want to know why T’Challa’s been keeping her under lock and key?” Well, keeping her away from Tony, anyway. That said, T’Challa himself had been scarce during Tony’s stay at casa del M’Baku, so maybe it was just a side-effect of the information shut-down. 

Barton was silent for a moment. “She was in danger during the succession, I don’t know if you heard. There was a bit of trouble here - another claim to the throne - and Shuri was in danger. T’Challa, he… He said he wanted her away from Wakanda for a bit, and to introduce her to people in her own league.” He shrugged. “I knew Jane Foster was back out on the West Coast after her stay in Asgard, and I figured…” 

_Ah._ So, that was it - Barton had put the two of them in touch, presumably around the time he’d gone to ground. “You did good.” Tony watched Steve sleeping, the gentle rise and fall of his chest. _They’re all so young._ He’d always thought Steve too young for everything put on his shoulders - had thought him ill-prepared and too green for it, for all that he’d survived combat - and now, in this state… _Everywhere I go, another kid gets put in the front line for my sake._ He’d told himself after Harley, he’d be more careful. He’d make sure those around him weren’ taking unnecessary risks. And instead… “There’s this kid in Queens,” he said abruptly. “You - you remember the spider kid?” 

“From the airport?” Barton said, startled. 

“That’s the one. He’s been harassing me ever since, you know? I made him the suit so he’d be a little safer, but…” Tony shook his head. “He’s on his own out there - he was on his own starting out, and he’s been getting into bigger and bigger trouble - and I just…” he shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I may have made a mistake. Maybe I should have just put a lid on it, kept him small, local, you know?” _Kept him safe,_ he thought, but did not say. (He still had not answered any of Peter’s messages. Better the kid have some time to cool off. Better he think Germany was an aberration, a mistake.) 

Barton made a non-committal sound. “Maybe.” He shrugged, looking at Tony sidelong. “You know, when Lila was five, she went missing.” Tony looked at him sharply at that, and Barton waved it away. “I know; where could she possibly go, right? Tiny little town, homestead; what, she’d hide under a bushel of hay or something? But anyway, Laura went down to the post office down the road, the kids with her, and Coop was supposed to be watching her as she queued, and he’d wandered off to chat to another kid, and the next thing you know, Laura’s looking around, and Lila isn’t there.” He laughed softly. “She went absolutely nuts. I mean, Cooper’s still probably never gonna hear the end of it. She ran through that entire town like a banshee, _my baby, my baby,_ the whole hysterical mother bit. No sign of her at all.” He looked down at his folded hands. 

Tony couldn’t imagine it. He hadn’t ever done anything like that himself, of course; if he’d done anything like that, a kidnapping would have been almost guaranteed. He didn’t think that’s where Barton’s story was going, not by the soft expression on his face, creased with warm remembrance, but… “Where was she?” He prompted. 

“Devil of a thing. She’d gone home.” Barton smiled. “And Laura, she’d just got home - to deposit Cooper there, you know, and wait for the police - and she found Lila sitting on the porch, playing. Waiting for her. You know what she said? _I got bored so I came home. But don’t worry, mommy, I asked a nice lady to hold my hand when I crossed the road!_ ” He laughed again, watching Steve sleep with that same soft expression on his face. “She was completely unrepentant. See, she’d remembered that she wasn’t supposed to cross the road on her own. But Laura hadn’t explained that ‘don’t wander off’ also meant not going home by herself.” He reached out and smoothed down Steve’s rumpled hair, soothing him as he twitched in his sleep. He turned slightly and met Tony’s eyes. “You keep them as safe as you can, as much as you can, for as long as you can. And then you trust that you gave them enough sense to shout if there’s a problem. That’s all you can do.” He shrugged a little. “It’s all anyone can do. You’re not screwing this up, OK? You’re doing fine.” 

Tony was silent for a long time. “He’s _seven,_ ” he said finally, savage. “How is that - that guy tried to _kill_ him, and now we’re gonna go make friends?” He reached out and circled Steve’s limp wrist with his thumb and forefinger. He could span the child’s wrist easily. “It was bad enough when he was bait, and now…” They’d done it before, of course. It had worked out with Wanda, hadn’t it? No reason to think it wouldn’t work here. (He hoped.) 

Barton nodded. “I know. But it’s a cliche for a reason, Tony.” He stood up. 

Tony looked up at him somberly. “The enemy of my enemy, huh?” 

“Your lips to god’s ears.” Barton’s hand landed on Tony’s shoulder as he walked away. 

He left Tony at Steve’s bedside, watching him sleep. 

_Which is worse? That Barnes and Romanoff are willing to endanger you because they look at you and see their friend in miniature? Or that Barton and I see you as someone else, as your own person, and will do the same?_

It didn’t matter in the end. If they were wrong, either way, it would be Steve who’d end up paying the price. 

Tony looked down at the pebble he held in his hands. He’d carried it with him from Birnin Zana, he’d had it with him during his convalescence. _Maybe it’s time I listened to what the other version of you had to say._

He smoothed Steve’s hair back from his forehead and stood, walking to the adjoining room and closing the door gently behind him. 

* 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like Shuri, I think she's amazing. Having her in danger during BP probably scared T'Challa witless, because he wasn't used to seeing his baby sister in danger. And I think part of the reason why she's sent to the US with Nakia is to give her that controlled entry into the world - she gets to see a bit of the world, with someone immensely capable watching over her. And although she's a genius in every sense of the word, that doesn't mean that working in isolation is good for her, or for anyone, really. So I figured connecting her with Jane Foster might be nice. 
> 
> And honestly, I think that Tony would adore her. He loves kids being smart and capable, he wants the best for them. He may often screw up, but his heart is in the right place.
> 
> Comments are love.


	16. Chapter 16

He had about an hour or so before Steve would wake up. Not enough time to make any sort of inroads on the recordings, but… well, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to listen to them. There was something screwed up about it all; another way in which Rogers could have his say and Tony’s rage would have no outlet. _What, sticking me with the miniature version wasn’t enough?_ He felt a pang of guilt as he thought it. Rogers’s actions had nothing to do with the kid; it wasn’t healthy to lump him in with all that had gone wrong between them. It’s not like the kid had any choice about being there.

_You never did want to listen to me, Rogers. Well, alright. Once more couldn’t make it much worse, I suppose._ If whatever Rogers had to say really stuck in his craw he could always turn off the recordings; not like the real version had given him that option.

Tony sat down at the desk, the pebble in his outstretched hand. “Locate audio recordings, Steve Rogers,” he murmured. The pebble beeped softly, the screen unfolding in front of his eyes, a list of entries appearing. There were about three dozen of them, spread over the weeks following Siberia, varying in length. Some were over an hour long; others, just a few minutes. There were associated files linked to them, photographs and maps that Tony recognised from the briefing packs, structured neatly in thematic trees. _So you finally learned how to organise your damn reports, huh, Cap?_ That, or Romanoff had organised it all before passing it on to him.

He didn’t want to listen to all of it in sequence, not if it was a mission briefing. Not when he’d already gathered all the data he needed from the hard copy. _Not enough money in the world to make me sit through one of your mission updates again, Rogers._ He closed his eyes for a moment. _I’m not so far gone as to sit here and pretend that -_

He’d done that before, when things had been bad. In the weeks after his parents had died, he’d laid in bed and closed his eyes and told himself that as long as he didn’t get up, as long as he didn’t have to speak to anyone else, there was nothing different in his world.

(He was at MIT, and he had Rhodey just down the hall, and he had his finals to think about, and as long as he didn’t open his eyes, his mom was back home, just a phone-call away.)

It had taken all of his strength to delete his mom’s greeting from the answerphone that Christmas. The temptation to ring home - to hear her voice saying they were away from the phone, but please leave a message and they would _call you back_ \- the temptation to pretend that everything was OK… he had rung that number over a dozen times, whiskey glass in hand, before he’d finally made himself hit _delete_.

(He didn’t want to do that again. He didn’t want to pretend anymore that those he lo- cared about were still in his life.)

_I don’t have the strength for that,_ a small, treacherous part of him thought, before he ruthlessly quashed it down.

“Identify entries with all of the following keywords: ‘Tony’, ‘Bucky’, ‘Siberia’.” Four entries lit up. Tony stared at them for a long moment. The first was about a week after Siberia, near the start of the audio record. The other three came up a few days later. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Remove keyword, ‘Siberia’.” Six more entries lit up, flashing _Tony, Bucky._

Tony’s mouth was dry. “Remove keyword, ‘Bucky’.” Twelve more.

The first entry with all three keywords was a mere two minutes long, time-stamped 03:22. He should probably leave that one until later, though; he should start at the first one tagged ‘Tony’ and work his way forward chronologically. He should…

He scrolled down to the entry tagged ‘Siberia’, staring. Two minutes. What could it hurt?

“Begin playback, half volume.”

There was an infinitesimal pause, like someone drawing in a breath to speak.

_I think, sometimes, that it would have been easier if I’d never woken up -_ Steve’s voice said from all around him, quiet and sad, and Tony closed his hand tight over the pebble, his breath coming hard.

“ _Pause playback._ ”

The recording stopped, the screen still lit up softly in front of him.

That… that had not been what he had expected. Rage, regret, maybe even guilt - sure. He had his own fair share of those. But this…

Tony closed his eyes, forcing his hand to open. He breathed deep, the pebble sitting fat and heavy in the centre of his palm. “Resume playback.”

_Maybe that would have been easier. Someone else could have taken my place on the team. Tony could have led them, or Thor, or someone from SHIELD. All they needed was a leader; they didn’t need me for that._

Tony’s breathing was loud and wet as he clenched his eyes, fighting to keep his palm open.

Steve sounded - he sounded -

_But if I’d never woken up, Bucky wouldn’t have woken up, either. He’d still be in that nightmare, being tortured, being made to hurt people. And I keep thinking about what I could have done differently, how I could have prevented how Siberia played out… and I just… I don’t know. I kept waiting to figure it out, for inspiration to hit, so I’d know exactly what to say. All I kept thinking was,_ Peggy would have known what to do. She would have known what to say to fix this, to keep them both safe. _But she wasn’t there, and Bucky wasn’t there, and trying to think it through was like wading through molasses, I just couldn’t make it work. And by the time I could think it through logically - by the time I figured out I should’ve just told Tony what I knew - it was too late to do anything._

Steve’s breathing was ragged and uneven, coming in gulps and gasps.

_All I keep thinking about is how Tony looked at me. He had this look on his face, this - this_ disappointment _, this shock. Like he couldn’t believe that I’d do something like this, that I’d fail him this badly._

_I promised myself after Bucky that I wouldn’t fail in protecting those I loved again. But now… now, when I dream about Bucky falling, I see Tony on the ground, looking up at me with this look on his face like he couldn’t believe that I could hurt him like this, that I could let him down so badly._

There was a pause, and strange, choking sound, like a hiccupped sob.

_Peggy said to me, years ago, that it’s supposed to feel like this when we lose someone. That this is how much it’s supposed to hurt, because grief is the price you pay for love. But I can’t - I can’t. It’s too much._

_I don’t want to feel like this anymore._

“I can’t do this,” Tony heard himself say, as if from far away, and his hand tightened around the pebble, terminating the playback.

He slumped on the table, bracketing his head with his arms, eyes clenched shut. Hot, prickling shame washed through him. What he was doing was unconscionable, monstrous. This was no different to Romanoff rifling through JARVIS’s data banks, or Maximoff rifling through Tony’s brain, both of them with the unerring ability to prise open his most guarded, shameful parts and bare them for all to see. He should have stopped after that first moment of hesitation, he knew that now. He should have realised what an invasion of privacy this was and backed out. Instead, he’d listened to something that…

(He’d had those thoughts himself; of course he had. If he’d died on Yinsen’s operating table, maybe Yinsen would still be alive; maybe Rhodey would still be able to walk; maybe Pepper would be safe; maybe the world would be better if -)

He doesn’t know why Romanoff was so insistent on him listening to all of this. What, was this violation of Steve’s privacy supposed to make them even, somehow? Was listening to Steve be in pain supposed to _help_ in some way? _Surprise! He didn’t run off to live the high life with his ole pal Bucky!_ What, that was supposed to be news? Steve’s self-flagellation was supposed to be something new and shocking to him?

Anger flared through him at the thought. Was that what Romanoff’s play was? Pull out the records of Ste- _Rogers_ at his lowest and make Tony sit through them so he’d develop - what? Fucking _empathy_?

And Tony had fallen for it, of course; hell, he’d done half of it himself in rifling through the tagging. What’s to say that the first few times his name came up weren’t iterations of _Steve’s_ disappointment, of _Steve’s_ rage? But no, Tony had gone straight for where the blood spatter still lay undisturbed around the corpse of their former friendship. _Siberia._

It didn’t change anything. It _couldn’t_ change anything. (Something seemed to go cold in him at that.) Was he supposed to be sympathetic that Rogers bruised his goddamned knuckles when he slammed his fist into Tony’s chest? Is that how this was supposed to work? He was supposed to have _sympathy_ for - for -

_I don’t want to feel like this anymore,_ Steve said, soft and broken. Behind Tony’s closed eyelids, he had that same lost look he’d worn after SHIELD fell, after everything had turned out to be another lie. (After his world had been upended, yet again.) _It would have been easier if I’d never woken up._

“Damn you,” Tony whispered. His voice caught on the sob. “This isn’t fair, it isn’t _fair_!” And damn Romanoff, too; Nat had always known how to go for the throat with him, hadn’t she? Between her shoving these recordings at him, and Barton shoving the kid at him, what was he supposed to do when he was so thoroughly outflanked? What the hell did they want from him? Was he supposed to just roll over and - what? - forgive and forget?

He couldn’t stop the panic rising at the thought of it, of having everything forced back the way it was, but with something like this between them, like a knife in the bed. _I can’t do this._ He couldn’t pretend everything was OK, he couldn’t pretend _he_ was OK. And he didn’t think that Rogers - that _Steve_ \- would want that; that he’d be OK with knowing all his secrets had been laid bare for Tony to inspect and discard. Maybe it was supposed to be poetic justice, or something simpler, baser; flaying Steve open so that Tony could assure himself that there was nothing hidden away… (Was that what Maximoff had intended when she came to him in his dream? Was that why she’d showed him Steve’s nightmare?)

Face still pressed against the cool table-top, he tightened his arms about his head, his heart hammering in his chest, panicked and rabbit-swift in the cage of his ribs. _Tachycardia,_ he thought, and his pulse sped up at the realisation. He should take - where were his -

_Oh._ That’s right, he couldn’t take the meds anymore. He couldn’t -

He slid out of his chair and lay down on the ground instead, his feet flat on the floor, staring up at the ceiling and breathing as slowly and as deeply as he could manage. After about twenty minutes, his pulse had slowed down enough so that it didn’t feel as though his heart would tear itself loose in his chest. He sat up cautiously and dragged himself to the wall, sitting up with his back against it, the pebble on the floor beside him.

He stared down at it. It looked so innocuous in its inert state. You wouldn’t think to look at it that it could hold something like that.

_I can’t do this._ He couldn’t listen to these recordings. It was too much, after all - he’d found his limits without even trying. His own dreams were bad enough; he didn’t need Steve’s nightmares on top of them.

_What were you trying to accomplish with that, Wanda?_ Had forcing him to see Steve’s nightmares been her own attempt to force a detente, or had it simply been an attempt to ‘correct’ his nightmares?

_Between Wanda giving me your nightmares, Nat giving me your journal, and Clint giving me your childhood…_ He cast a glance at the closed bedroom door, behind which - he hoped - the kid was still safely asleep. _What will be left of you when we get you back, Steve?_ (Something prickled through his chest at that, sharp and painful.)

If it had been Tony in Steve’s shoes, if his nightmares had been broadcast, his journal opened, his childhood on display for all the world to see, would he have been able to look anyone in the eyes again?

He really, _really_ needed Rhodey. Rhodey would know what to do; Rhodey would calm him down just by being himself. Whatever else was going on in Tony’s life, Rhodey had been his constant, his rock. And Rhodey was in surgery - or had been - and he just, he needed to see his face. To reassure himself that his North Star was still there, ready to call him an idiot and hug him in equal measure.

He grabbed for the pebble and scrolled through to the contacts. Rhodey had been loaded up as a contact, although his name still showed up as greyed out. Lack of connection or the contact hadn’t been set up correctly? It had worked when Rhodey had called _him_ previously...

“Come on, come on,” he muttered, wiping his face. The pebble still refused to connect, flashing through to a _User unavailable_ message three times before finally rerouting him to a forwarding contact.

After a few soft beeps of delay, he ended up face to face with Sam Wilson. “Oh, it’s you,” he said, unable to keep the disappointment from his face. “Is Rhodey there?”

“D’you know what time it is?” Wilson snapped, sitting up in bed. “You call Jim at this hour often?” He looked as sleep-deprived as Tony felt, and there were pillow-creases on his cheek.

“Our love’s more 24/7 than 7/11,” Tony snapped back automatically, then made himself take a breath. No reason to take it out on Wilson, no matter how much he wanted to cry, or to wring Steve’s (or Nat’s) neck. “Sorry. Habit. I can’t get through to Rhodey, and Barton said he was in surgery - is he out, yet? How’s he doing?” _Can I talk to him?_ but no, that was the selfish, hurt part of him talking. Rhodey needed _him_ , not the other way around; he couldn’t dump this on him as well. _I just need to see him, to know he’s OK,_ he reasoned, bargaining with himself the way he’d used to as a child. _I just need to see his face._ “Is he awake?”

Wilson rubbed at his eyes and fought the yawn. “He’s in post-op, they’re still doing their assessments. But they’re optimistic the surgery was successful.” He looked away for a moment, as if steeling himself. “How’s Steve?”

It took Tony a moment to mentally re-set to the Steve asleep like a sprawled koala in the next room, rather than to the one on the recordings and in his dreams. _It’s easier to think of him as Steve 2.0,_ he’d thought all those days ago, and it was true. There was a gulf between the child and the man that yawned ever wider with every trauma the child suffered. _This_ Steve… was not _that_ Steve. Tony shrugged helplessly. His heart thudded in slow percussion through his chest, low and pained, as if someone was tightening a vise around his ribs. “Quiet. I don’t know, I don’t really know… kids.”

Wilson’s jaw worked. “But he’s not a kid,” he said, slow and deliberate. “He’s…” He paused, rubbing at his face as he looked away.

He looked exhausted, Tony realised, like he hadn’t slept at all since Tony had last seen him, despite the pillow-creases still on his face. And he hadn’t looked that hot back in Birnin Zana, either. Rhodey had said he hadn’t taken things especially well, that he hadn’t been sleeping, but… “Wilson? I know we’re not exactly bosom chums, here, but… everything OK?”

“Everything’s fine, Stark.” Wilson smiled tiredly. “I’ll get Jim to call you once he’s rested up a bit. You guys doing OK over there?”

He thought about fighting him on this, but… “I - yeah. I mean, I’m not so hot on the plan, let’s put it that way, but there’s not a whole lot of choice, so…”

“... yeah, I know how that goes.” Wilson looked at him for a long moment. “I was against it, by the way.”

“You were?” That _was_ a surprise. That Wilson had been read in, and that he'd voiced his opposition.

“Well,” Wilson grimaced, “not that it did much good. But you’re both civilians right now, and…” he leaned forward, filling the screen suddenly. “Listen, if you’ve changed your mind, if you want someone to just, I don’t know, get you and go to ground somewhere -”

“... thanks.” Tony managed a smile, surprise melting through him. “I mean - yeah. I appreciate it. I think this is the best shot we have, but… thanks.” It was something to bear in mind, maybe. That not everyone was falling into line behind Barnes on this.

Wilson leaned back, his shrug almost imperceptible. “Well, the offer’s open, if you change your mind.” He looked at Tony for a long moment, his eyes narrowing. “Stark. Why did you call?”

Tony looked away. “I told you, I wanted to check on Rhodey -”

“Yeah, OK, fine. But other than that. Why did you call?” Wilson’s gaze was flinty. “How did you say Steve was doing?”

_Pull yourself together, for God’s sake._ He straightened his shoulders. “I - he’s fine, a credit to the species, he’s -”

“ _Stark._ ”

Tony chewed his bottom lip, hesitating. He could tell Wilson, or he could finish the call, but he couldn’t just… “So… hypothetically, if I was to listen to those recordings Nat gave me…”

“You haven’t listened to them yet?” Wilson interrupted, surprise on his face. “I’d have thought… OK, no, go on.”

“I… what do you mean, _yet_? Why would I?” _Did you?_ A part of him thought, but, _no, that makes no sense, she wouldn’t just hand them out like party favours -_

Wilson stared at him. “Well, she gave them to you.” _So you had access to them,_ his expression seemed to say.

Tony took back every nice thought he’d ever had about Sam fucking Wilson. “Yeah, in a gross breach of privacy!” _And I’m a complete hypocrite,_ Tony thought, his heart in his mouth. To harp on about privacy having listened to that recording… He should have refused outright, or just deleted the files, he should have done anything other than -

_I don’t want to feel like this anymore,_ the Steve in Tony’s head said, and he was on the sofa in Stark Tower, and he was facing down the Chitauri, and he was in Siberia, and he was smashing his shield into Tony’s chest, _it would have been easier if I’d never woken up._

Wilson was frowning at him. “So you were respecting Steve’s privacy? What if there’d been mission-critical stuff in there?”

“Romanoff already went over it all with a fine-tooth comb,” he said quietly. “All that’s left is… I don’t know. Not that.” He was silent for a long moment. “I listened to one. It was short, and I thought… I thought it’d be OK… I don’t know.”

“And was it? OK, I mean?” Wilson had an odd look on his face, strangely neutral.

_Professional,_ Tony thought. That was professional compassion, right there: bland and tasteless and - “I wanted to talk to Rhodey about this. That’s why I called. I - I won’t listen to the others. I shouldn’t have listened to that one, either.”

“... that bad, huh?”

Tony stared at him mulishly and stayed silent.

Wilson sighed. “I could have told her it was a bad idea. Barton, too. For a pair of super-spies, those two have the subtlety of a brick shithouse.”

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

Wilson ignored him. “I’m gonna say something now that I shoulda said earlier.” He leaned forward. “ _You’re allowed to say no._ ”

“To what?” Tony asked, bewildered, before realising and flushing. "Wilson," he started.

“To all of it," Wilson cut in, undeterred. "To any of it. OK? You’re allowed to say no. The two of you - look, you may be able to resolve this, or maybe not. But he’s in no condition to discuss any of it with you, and you’re under no obligation to stick with him when you haven’t had your say. It’s probably not doing either of you any favours, to be honest. And I don’t think that ‘no’ is in either Nat’s or Barton’s vocabulary, given their backgrounds, so… I’m saying it.”

Tony stared at him. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Tony pressed his lips together. “Well, thanks for that pearl of wisdom, Yoda, you have been of no help whatsoever.”

Wilson - the bastard - actually _laughed_. “I’m not your fucking counsellor, Tony. Or Steve’s. There isn’t a magic bag of solutions I’m withholding for shits and giggles.” He sobered up abruptly. “Seriously, think about it, Tony. I get what Nat and Barton are trying to do, but trying to rush you guys into this isn’t gonna do us much good if there’s another blow-out.” He shrugged, helpless. “I - yeah, that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.” He glanced away at something off-screen. “Anyway, I better go; I should be able to go in to see Jim soon. I’ll get him to call you when he’s feeling up to it.”

“Yeah, OK. Thanks.” He wasn’t sure what to do with the advice, admittedly, but he did appreciate Wilson _trying_. At least he was being upfront about things with him, which was considerably more than anyone else had managed. A thought occurred. “Hey, Sam?”

“What?”

He thought about keeping his mouth shut, but… “You should take your own advice a little bit. I get that you’re angry at Rogers - and me - and I get _why_ ; believe me, I do, and if I could give anything to undo it… but, listen. You’re no good to Rhodey if you don’t look after yourself, ‘cause all it does is make Rhodey do it. And he has enough on his plate.”

Wilson gaped at him. “Says the man phoning him to bitch about his love life!”

“Yeah, well.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Just ‘cause I’m a selfish bastard doesn’t mean everyone in his life should be. Take your own damn advice and just - I don’t know. You know what to do. That’s your job, right? Physician, heal thyself.” He waved his fingers in a vague gesture to illustrate.

Wilson’s lip twitched. “I am honestly amazed Jim hasn’t suffocated you in your sleep.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Tony confided, “but so am I. Go take a shower or something before you go snuggle my honeybear, Sam. And get some fucking sleep, OK? You look like shit.”

“Likewise, asshole.” Wilson smiled and flipped him the finger before he rang off.

Tony stared at the inert pebble for a moment, feeling inexplicably better. Rhodey had someone with him, someone who was watching out for him. He was safe, and if all the stars were aligned and Wakandan tech was as shiny as the previews had indicated, maybe he’d be a little further on that road to recovery. All Tony could do was hope, at this point; until the spinal shock finished doing its thing, everything was still up for grabs.

And Wilson… well, Wilson had his own beef with Steve, and that beef was probably Rhodey-shaped. _Physician, heal thyself;_ well, he hadn’t _quite_ come out and accused Wilson of blaming him and Steve for Rhodey’s injury, but… _It’s not like he’s wrong to do that._ Wilson blamed him, Tony blamed Wilson; and Rhodey was stuck in the middle with both of them fucking useless.

Well, at least Wilson was trying. Grudgingly Tony admitted to himself that maybe - _maybe_ \- it might be a good idea for him to try to mend some bridges with Wilson, for Rhodey’s sake. And it looked like Wilson was thinking along the same lines.

_You’re allowed to say no,_ Wilson said, and he did have a point. He did. Tony could wrap himself in his rage and hand the kid over to Barnes and go back to Birnin Zana to recover from his injuries. He could let the others all deal with it all.

But…

_I don’t want to feel like this anymore,_ Steve said, his voice full of grief, and there was really no choice at all.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think I went through six drafts of this and am still not happy with the result, you'd be right. I think I got through close to 20k words to finally reach these 4k. Anyway, I'm moving the goalposts to claiming victory through posting it at all.
> 
> The quote, "Grief is the price we pay for love" is from a longer quote from psychiatrist Dr Colin Murray Parkes, from his book, “Bereavement: Studies of Grief in Adult Life” (although it's more commonly remembered from a speech given by the Queen following 9/11). 
> 
> I've written other stories centred on Rhodey's injuries so I won't go into it all here again, but I can't imagine the [spinal shock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_shock) would have gone away entirely at this point so Rhodey's injuries are probably still exacerbated by that. 
> 
> I guess it's pretty obvious that my versions of the characters have all been through pretty profound traumas and are affected by them in a variety of ways. They're all trying to fix the ruptures in the team in the best ways they know how, but that doesn't mean they have to agree on the way to proceed. 
> 
> Comments are love.


	17. Chapter 17

It was incredibly tempting to chalk the whole thing up as an elaborate ruse by Romanoff. _Mental note - never get on that woman’s bad side. Well,_ he amended, _her_ worse _side. She already hates me._ Although, if this was what she did to people she liked, maybe Tony was lucky to not be in her good graces.

However much Romanoff may have overstepped her bounds, though, it had been Tony himself who had decided to listen to the recordings. And for all that Wilson’s surprise at Tony’s restraint had stung, it had mostly hurt because it hadn’t been enough, had it? He’d still given in to temptation. _Maybe that’s what Nat was trying to show me. But I’m not the moral yardstick, here!_ Was it really that far out of left field for him to expect Rogers to practice what he’d preached? It’s not as though Tony had ever held himself up as a moral example on _anything_.

_Right, enough self-pity. Work the goddamn problem, Stark. What’s next?_

Dr Foster and the princess would be checking in daily, which meant - he looked at his watch - sometime in the next twelve to eighteen hours, probably, assuming they did them the courtesy of taking the time difference into account. And assuming that there wasn’t anything they discovered in the meantime that needed to be shared more quickly, of course.

In the meantime, he was stuck inside the mountain until Stabbity Ann decided to make an appearance. _Plenty of time to get my shit together._ He glanced back at the closed bedroom door and decided to make the most out of having the kid still asleep. He showered as quickly as humanly possible and fixed up some coffee. He’d need to get the suit fixed, of course. It was patched up enough to have some of the emergency functions back, but if they had a prolonged fight coming, it needed a few more hours of work.

He also needed to get a line open to FRIDAY. Not that the pebble wasn’t a marvel (he really should get Shuri’s permission to take it apart once this was all over, that, or bribe her with whatever teenaged girls with genius-level intellects wanted - tickets to a Beyoncé concert, her favourite YouTuber’s phone number, access to the recovered Chitauri weaponry components - to go over the schematics with her) but Tony… well. He always felt more secure when he built something himself.

The first order of priority was opening up an emergency exit, and that meant flight, and the unibeam. The unibeam hadn’t taken any damage during the fight, so all he had to do was re-align the matrix inside the HUD, which was a five minute job. The damage to the right boot repulsor, however, was much more complicated. It hadn’t just been knocked out of alignment; the delicate filaments inside acting as the boot’s ‘nerves’ - the things that allowed Tony to adjust the boot’s position automatically inside the suit to maintain balance - had been brought too close to the repulsor and had been damaged. Strpping those back and replacing them was a fiddly, painstaking job and he was cursing his sore eyes and back by the time he finished a couple of hours later.

He was half-way through re-assembling the boot, the filaments repaired or replaced with the fast-dwindling emergency supplies in the thigh compartments by the time that Steve crept out of the bedroom, fully dressed and in his Iron Man sneakers, up on his tiptoes in exaggerated stealth. He looked up and smiled. “Hey, kid.” He reached out to ruffle Steve’s hair. It was easier to keep the adult Steve and the child Steve separate in his mind when he had the kid version in front of him. He was so different in so many ways from the adult that his personhood, for lack of a better term, was more easily apparent. _Maybe that’s why Barnes doesn’t want to spend time with him,_ he wondered. _Easier to just focus on Rogers when you can ignore the child exists._ “How did you sleep?”

Steve submitted to being ruffled without complaint. “OK.” He grabbed on to Tony’s arm and climbed up on his lap like a child much younger, or at least one still used to being carried.

Tony still found that vaguely disturbing. To start with - when Steve had been ill - he’d chalked it up to any sick child’s natural reticence to walking. But now, with Steve back on his feet and no such convenient excuse, he was starting to wonder. Surely he hadn’t done this with his mother? For all that he was a thin, sickly child, he was still as heavy and cumbersome as a sack of potatoes. There was no way anyone as thin as Sarah Rogers had been - judging by the one photograph a much younger Tony had seen in his history books - had been able to carry a child this large around. “You’re affectionate this morning,” he said after a beat. He looked down at the tow-headed child in his lap.

The child didn’t seem to hear this, wriggling until he could peer at the half-reassembled boot. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing up the armour. Want to see?” Tony allowed him to stay perched on Tony’s knee as he finished reassembling the boot, turning the finished result this way and that so he could see the repairs. _Well, nothing I can do about this right now. The moment we get some breathing space, we need to sit you down with someone who knows what they’re doing on this front._ Psychiatrist, social care worker, SVU investigator, whatever - someone who’d know what to do with him. _I’m gonna let Pepper hire an army of specialists and let them take their best shot._ Well, it couldn’t hurt, could it?

He put Steve back down to re-attach the boot and showed him how it joined back to the leg. “There, that’s all fixed, now.”

“It can fly again?” Steve asked, anxiety plain in his voice.

Tony glanced across at him, taking in the way the child hunched his shoulders, as if trying to make himself even smaller. Even less of a threat. _Dammit. Well, OK, that explains quite a bit._ Had he bothered to explain to him what was happening? No. He’d just carted him around half of Wakanda. No wonder the kid was anxious.

He brought the HUD back to the table and hoisted Steve on the table to sit beside it, so that he could face him more or less eye to eye. “Hey. Yeah, it’s gonna fly again, don’t worry. Listen, I didn’t say it before, but I should have. You’ve been very brave all through this, Steve. I’m -“ The words stuck in his throat. _I don’t want to feel like this anymore._ He coughed and tried again. “We’re all very proud of you.”

Steve did not seem especially buoyed by this praise, looking down at his sneakered feet.

He’d put them on all by himself, Tony realised belatedly. For all that Tony had been in charge of him, for the most part Steve hadn’t needed Tony for much other than getting him to safety and occasionally calming him down when he had a nightmare or anxiety attack. The nurses had dealt with the health aspects, and for everything else, Steve was a remarkably self-sufficient child. _Meanwhile, I have everyone from here to New York telling me what a bang-up job I’m doing with him._ He grimaced. “You did a good job with those laces,” he said to the bowed head. “Guess your mom taught you how to do that, huh?”

Steve nodded jerkily. “She - she said I was supposed to know how to do stuff like that.”

_Tread carefully._ “Is that right? Stuff like what?”

The child was silent for a while. Then, “laces, and clothes, and - and tidying things.” His voice hitched. “She said - she said that her job was to look after me. And my job was to - to do the same.” He looked up at Tony.

Not a bad philosophy, given what little Tony knew about the life Steve would have led during the Depression, and how Steve’s mother had died. She’d have made sure he was independent and able to survive without her as soon as possible. Sure, Steve had promptly turned that into a blanket pass to punch above his weight on more than one battlefield, even before the serum, but Tony couldn’t fault Sarah Rogers’s logic and motivation. “Well, your mom sounds like a smart woman. And look, you’ve done that bow perfectly.” He patted the boy’s foot. “I need you to keep doing what your mom said, OK? We’re gonna look out for you, but we need you to do the same.” _And not leap headlong into danger without any regard for your own safety, unlike certain super-soldiers I could name._

The boy nodded hesitantly. “But - but the man -”

_There we go._ First the massacre at the base, then the realisation that he was on his own, and now someone was actively after his head. _No wonder he’s clinging to me._ Tony tried to keep his voice gentle. “He’s not gonna hurt you, kiddo. There’s a lot of us here, and _our_ job is to protect you.”

“And you’re one of them?”

Why the hell did the kid sound so uncertain about that? “And I’m one of them, that’s right. In fact, we have a plan to stop that man from hurting you. But there’s something I want to do just in case we have a problem, OK?”

Steve blinked up at him, wide-eyed. “OK.”

“Good.” He patted Steve. “Gimme a sec.”

He went to the suit and opened up one of the side-panels on the right thigh, pulling out a tiny tracker. He held it up for Steve to inspect. “This is a - it’s like - it makes a secret sound that only my suit can hear,” he decided at last. “It’s a little tricky because we’re underground right now, and large amounts of rock can cause problems, but in most cases, if you have this on you, I’m going to be able to find you.” He carefully tucked it into the seam of one of the tiny sneakers, hidden out of sight. “So you make sure to wear these shoes whenever you’re going anywhere, OK? And that way I’ll be able to find you.” Ideally, he’d stick the thing on the kid somewhere a bit more permanent, but there really weren’t the facilities for a subcutaneous implant here. _I really need to develop a version of these in an injectable format._

Steve looked down at his foot, held firmly in Tony’s grip. “So… if someone steals me…”

“I’ll steal you right back.” He patted Steve’s knee reassuringly. “OK?”

It took Steve a long time to process this. He stared down at his feet and didn’t say anything, his brow furrowed.

_Maybe he’s not OK with it,_ Tony thought suddenly. _Maybe I freaked him out._ That didn’t seem that likely, though; the kid had been clinging to him more and more vehemently with every passing day. Telling him about the tracker should make him _more_ reassured, not _less_. “Steve?” He asked uncertainly. “Is that OK?”

Steve finally looked up. His mouth was thin and pinched, and his eyes were wet. “D’you promise?” He whispered. “If - if I get lost, you’ll come find me?” He looked back down, his entire frame trembling. “Only… only… only my mom said, she said…”

_Oh, no._ This was a hell of a lot worse than Steve not trusting him to be his protector. This was… He didn’t know what to do. _Fuck,_ looking after frightened kids was really not his forte. At a complete loss, he gathered the child back up on his arms. “I know,” he said gently. “But… you haven’t gone missing, kiddo. You’ve just been made… small.” _Christ,_ he was making it worse. What next, _Oh and by the way, if you haven’t figured it out already she’s dead anyway, so…_ He’d been holding out the vague hope that the kid had been too turned around by everything to have really processed what had happened, but if Steve had narrowed it down to abandonment or bereavement… _Shit._

He wished there was someone more competent - or less sleep-deprived - to do this. “I promise, OK, Steve? I promise to look after you. If someone steals you away, I’m going to come after you. You’re not on your own.”

Steve buried his face against Tony’s neck, his shoulders shaking. “I want my _mom_ ,” he whispered, broken-hearted. “I keep waking up and she’s not there, and, and, I’ll be good, I’ll be _good_ , I promise, I just want my _mom_.”

_Yeah, kiddo, I know. We all want our moms._ Tony pressed his lips to the top of Steve’s head and said nothing, letting the child cry himself out.

*

_The ocean was beautiful out here. It’s why he’d had the house built jutting out into this deep delirious blue, so that he could close his eyes and still feel the warmth of the sun and the sting of the ocean on his skin._

_“I missed this place,” he said aloud. There was no one beside him, but it felt right to say it just the same. The house would know. JARVIS would know._

_“You always did love the ocean,” his mom said. She was at the door, wearing a pale peach dress he remembered from his childhood, a string of pearls around her neck. There was a bundle cuddled to her chest, wrapped in a pale blue blanket. “Even as a little one, you loved to splash about. You couldn’t get enough of it.” She looked down at the bundle in her arms, pushing back the blanket. “Do you want to hold him?”_

_He looked away. The light was bright; it burned his retinas even through his closed eyelids. “No.”_

_She sighed, jostling the bundle a little. A plaintive cry started up, and she made gentle shushing noises. “You should hold him, while there is time. You will regret it later, once he is gone.”_

_“He’s not mine to hold,” he said listlessly. He opened his eyes up, staring at the sun, huge and relentless, burning him. He was so cold, even out here, in the sunlight. “He was never mine.”_

_His mom looked down at the crying child. “He has no one else.” She reached out a hand. “Tony, my sweetheart. If he’s not yours, then whose is he?”_

_“I…” He didn’t know what to do. Every choice seemed impossible, seemed to be the wrong one. It seemed presumptuous, somehow, to choose. “You don’t understand. There’s… there’s a price - I can’t…”_

_“You can’t?” She asked, and raised an eyebrow. She held out the bundle. “Look,” she said. “Look what you could have, if you’re brave enough and selfish enough. Look!”_

_There was blood inside the blanket, as if from a death, or a birth. The child blinked up at him, blue eyes the colour of the ocean after a storm._ “Wake up,” _the child said, shouted, shrieked, panicked and flailing, reaching across to grab his hand and squeeze it in an iron grip. “Wake up!”_

_On the floor of the balcony, Steve coughed wetly, his chest cleaved open by the shield stuck deep inside it. “Tony,” he said, staring up at him with those same eyes, helpless and furious in equal measure. “Tony, don’t listen, you can’t do this, Tony_ please, _I’m your_ friend -”

“Wake up, Stark. Stark!”

Tony was abruptly awake, suddenly aware of being sprawled out in his chair with a child slumped in his arms, Barnes bending over him. “Christ!”

_“_ Easy, easy now. I’m not here to hurt you,” Barnes said quietly, half-catching the child as Tony startled and decanting him back into Tony’s arms. “Did you… did you sleep? You’re good with him,” he added, as if remembering an instruction.

_Oh, shut the hell up._ It wasn’t as if the bastard cared one way or the other; this was just him trying to get under Tony’s skin. And, really, Tony was getting spectacularly fed up of everyone praising him to kingdom come like he was a pre-schooler in need of soothing, especially since the prevailing attitude to reading him in on the plans left him at roughly the same level. “And you’re spectacularly shit with him,” he bit out. “It must be a gift. I thought your past self was supposed to have raised a passel of kids, what with all the siblings and cousins; didn’t any of that stick?” He raised a hand to his head to press against the source of the headache. “And quit sneaking up on me, I have a heart condition, asshole. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Barnes seemed unruffled by this possibility, or by Tony’s comments on his memory loss. “You are very fragile, even for a baseline human,” he observed. “The heart condition, the cerebral haemorrhage, the…” He waved a hand, as if indicating the entirety of Tony’s… everything. “And you don’t look after yourself properly anyway. I doubt anyone could pin it on me.”

_Well, that’s not terrifying in the slightest, nope._ “What the hell do you want, Barnes?” Tony looked down at the wriggle in his arms and let Steve slide free to promptly hide behind his leg. “Look, you frightened him. Nice work. Kill any rabbits lately?”

“‘m not frightened,” Steve said in a small voice, his entire face against Tony’s thigh.

Tony held up his arms as if to demonstrate. _See?_

“The princess has the restraints ready,” Barnes said. He had his body armour on, and his gun with him. Correction; he had _four_ guns with him, one of which probably weighed more than the kid. “They’re gonna thicken up the trail and set the bait in the next couple of hours. They’ll come get us when it’s all over.”

“Ah. So you’re here to play babysitter in case it all goes belly-up.” Tony looked across at the suit. It could still do with a few more hours, but he hadn’t lied to the kid: if the proverbial hit the fan, he could fly them both out of there. Of course, there wasn’t anywhere _safe_ he could fly them to, but… there was an exit, at least. “Aren’t you supposed to be skulking behind doors and columns so as not to freak out the kid?”

Barnes shrugged. “Hard to shield either of you if you’re not right next to me. Maximoff is outside the door. The Jabari guards are securing the corridors, and the Dora will be guarding the attacker, once we get him.”

“If we catch him.”

“ _When_ we catch him.” He looked at the child still hiding behind Tony and pulled out the smallest gun. “I assume you’re most comfortable with the suit weapons. Can he handle one of these?”

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ Tony looked up from pulling on the suit bracelets and gaped at him. “No, he fucking can’t, get away from him with that thing! He’s seven!”

Barnes looked at Steve. Steve - peeking around Tony’s leg with interest - looked back. “He… I thought… We went to the Boardwalk on Coney Island, one summer. I thought…” He shook his head. “I thought I remembered…” 

“What?” Tony asked, despite himself. He looked down at the child. “Steve?”

Steve was watching Barnes with a puzzled look on his face. “Bucky’s mom and dad took us to Coney Island for his birthday,” he said slowly. “I… I couldn’t go on any of the rides, because of my breathing. But we went to the shooting gallery.” He brightened. “I won a prize!”

Relief was melting across Barnes’s face at this. “Yeah. Yeah, you did. It was my birthday, and you won me a prize. A…” Frustration, again, creasing his face into a scowl.

Steve shrank away from his expression, hiding behind Tony again.

“I’m sure he won you the entire stuffed animal gallery, Barnes, that doesn’t mean you can give him a gun,” Tony said sharply. He didn’t know how he felt about Barnes making an effort - and he had, clearly he had, albeit an odd and clumsy one - and he didn’t know how he felt about Steve’s interest, either. But some things - such as a gun near the kid - he had very strong opinions on. He put a hand on Steve’s shoulder and firmly steered him towards the bedroom. “OK, kid, let’s get you into your travelling gear if we have to make a speedy exit. Action man over here can watch out for Norman Bates.” He made a face as he ushered the child out of sight. “Can the seven year old handle a gun, my God…”

Steve peered up at him, his face creasing into a determined - and familiar - frown. “I could!”

_Oh, no you don’t._ Bad enough that Barnes chose this as a bonding moment, all Tony needed was Steve thinking he would be part of the fight. “That’s enough out of you. You don’t get to have an opinion until you’re taller than my shoulders. Come on, let’s get you ready.” With a bit of help from Steve, he managed to get the child into the large coat that Dhakiya had sent and zipped him up firmly, making sure that the Kevlar inserts were properly positioned over his back and front.

Behind him, Barnes was watching him critically. “You won’t need to evacuate him,” he said. “And if you do, you will need someone to guide you through the tunnels.”

“That’s why, if I have to get us out of here, I’m gonna strap you to the front of the suit,” Tony tossed back over his shoulder. “You’ll be like the world’s worst hood ornament slash GPS system.” No need to mention the unibeam; true, Tony wouldn’t be able to carve his way through the entire mountain, but get him to an exterior wall and he’d do just fine.

The kid prepped and the suit on, there wasn’t anything to do but wait.

Barnes made himself - well, comfortable was probably over-stating it, given that he was on his feet, facing the only entrance into the room.

“He came through the air, last time,” Steve piped up from where he was huddled in Tony’s arms. “He made a hole in the air.”

“That he did. But that’s why we’re in a mountain, so he can’t do that again.”

Steve thought this over and seemed to accept the logic of the plan, relaxing a little. Then, “so is he coming through the door?”

Barnes looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “He’s not coming at all, kid. This is just a precaution. It’s…” he seemed to struggle for the right words for a moment before inspiration hit. “It’s misdirection. He’s headed in the opposite direction.” He managed to make eye contact for a second before looking away again.

_You’re really not comfortable with him, are you?_ Tony thought. For all that Barnes had clearly taken Tony’s earlier words to heart and was trying to connect with Steve, seeing him in this state was probably not doing his mental state any favours. A little too familiar to the face in his memories, and yet completely uninterested in being best buds; that was bound to be both confusing and painful.

_Well, now you know how it feels, I guess._ He tried for petty satisfaction, but it just felt hollow. Barnes’s pain did nothing whatsoever to lessen his own issues; it just made him conscious that there was another variable at play.

He let Barnes stew in the resulting silence and just tried to keep the kid comfortable. He hadn’t eaten yet - and there was no telling when their trap would be sprung - so he grabbed some of the leftover pancakes from the night before and coaxed Steve into munching on a couple of them, wincing a little as greasy, sticky fingers promptly smeared passion fruit jam all over the suit’s shoulder joint. _Well, I probably deserved that. Immediate karma, or something._

For his part, Barnes seemed just as bemused at Tony’s jam predicament as Tony had been at Barnes’s earlier discomfiture.

_This is what we’re reduced to. We can’t beat each other into a pulp, so we passive-aggressively bat a child between us to see who feels the most uncomfortable._

The child in question sighed and slumped, clearly bored after only a few minutes. He didn’t ask to be set down, though, which spoke volumes about his anxiety levels. After a moment, Tony murmured quietly, “FRIDAY, cue up some Arthurian legends, please.” He offered one of the earbuds to the child who took it obediently and held it up to his ear.

FRIDAY’s familiar lilt washed over them both, picking up smoothly from where Tony had left off when reading to Steve those nights back at Birnin Zana.

Barnes glanced back at the two of them; Tony’s torso turned slightly so that his shoulder was between the door and Steve, the child’s face furrowed in concentration. The amusement faded at the tableau, Barnes’s expression smoothing out into something unreadable.

They waited.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw _Infinity War_ today, and I have many feelings. Luckily, as this fic is set before S-M: Homecoming, pretty much nothing in IW impacts it at all. There may be small elements of non-compliance as obviously I started this before IW, but I hope it doesn't spoil your enjoyment of the fic. 
> 
> Notes:  
> Coney Island Boardwalk opening in 1923, so it's perfectly feasible - at least in theory - for a poor family in the mid-20s to have made a special birthday trip out there to partake of the amusements. 
> 
> Barnes really is trying. Tony really isn't cooperating. And Steve is... Steve is not OK.
> 
> Comments, as always, are love.


	18. Chapter 18

A little over three hours later, Romanoff opened the door and peered in. “We got him,” she said without any preamble. “T’Challa is talking to him now, and Wanda is making sure he behaves.” She raised an eyebrow at the sight of Tony with a squirmy and sweaty Steve - still in his Kevlar-lined coat - in his lap. “Hey, Steve. That doesn’t look very comfortable. D’you want to take that coat off?”

Steve looked up at Tony for permission, waiting for the barest hint of a nod before immediately starting to battle with the zips and buttons. Tony left him to it, stepping to one side with Romanoff and Barnes. “How’s it looking?” He could assume from her not-stabbed appearance that things were not currently on fire. “He come quietly?”

She shrugged a little. “The restraints are holding. And Wanda’s right there, in case they don’t. I’d say we have a reasonable chance of being able to contain him.”

“Yes, but other than that,” Tony said irritably, folding his arms. “On a scale of one to a bag of Loki’s cats, how crazy is the crazy?” 

“Eh.” Romanoff made a noncommittal gesture, one eyebrow arched. “I’d say he can be reasoned with.” The corners of her mouth crinkled as Steve ran back in, presenting himself for inspection. “Seems he’s not a fan of the world ending.” 

Tony stopped in the act of checking Steve’s sneakers to make sure the tracker was still firmly attached. “And that wasn’t a given?” He asked incredulously.

“I’ve learned not to take any of that for granted,” Romanoff said, in the air of one imparting great wisdom, laughing a little as Tony rolled his eyes in response. “Besides,” she said reasonably, “that, and his pop culture knowledge - thanks for that, by the way - gives us a useful lever.”

“What lever?”

Romanoff smiled with all her teeth. “He’s human, more or less.”

“Human is good?” Tony asked, a little doubtful, and took hold of Steve’s hand, falling into step beside her.

“It means he has weak spots we can reach,” Barnes said from Steve’s other side.

Tony looked across at him, startled. _Of course._ If reasoning with him didn’t work, if finding common ground wasn’t possible… well, they could always find out who the madman loved, and… “It’s like the whole concept of humanity has passed you by entirely, hasn’t it?” Came out of his mouth before he could call it back.

Barnes didn’t even look at him. 

Romanoff just sighed. “If you two are quite done…” 

A couple of familiar faces were waiting for them at the end of the corridor, flanked by four guards. 

“When did you guys get back?” Tony asked, surprised. He had thought Vision and Lang were still out in Burkina Faso, being visibly _not_ in Wakanda.

“About an hour ago,” Vision said with a smile. He was wearing a human guise, the red and green - and the cape - cloaked effectively behind a blonde, blue-eyed innocence. Tony wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a crowd if he didn’t know what he was looking for. “The need for subterfuge expired after we knew the trap had worked. It is good to see you recovered from your injuries.” He looked down at where Steve was hiding against Tony’s leg. “We have not met, Steve,” he said softly. “I am a friend of your older self. My name is Vision.”

Steve hesitated another couple of moments, then shyly let go of Tony and extended his hand to shake.

Lang didn’t bother introducing himself to Steve, patting the child on the head absent-mindedly instead as he fell into step beside Tony. “How are you guys holding up?”

Tony didn’t know this guy from Adam and wasn’t in a particular mood to be friendly. “I could do without being kept locked up like a fairy-tale princess, frankly.”

“Well,” Lang said reasonably, “you’d probably still look fairly hot in a ballgown.”

_Oh, for fuck’s sake. Who is this guy, redshirt number twelve? Even I’m not that bad._ He snorted. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Vis, take Steve, will you? We need to meet with -” Romanoff looked down at Steve, still half-hidden behind Tony, “with the King.” _With the guy who tried to abduct you,_ she didn’t say.

_Ah, OK. That makes sense._ He couldn’t bring the child with him, not if the swordsman was feinting - and they couldn’t risk leaving him undefended, either. Vision would be able to keep him moving and get him to safety in the event that everything went belly-up. Sighing, Tony knelt on the floor and pulled Steve around to face him. Romanoff, Barnes and Lang continued walking, although Vision and the four guards paused with Tony. “Hey, Steve,” he said quietly. “D’you remember what I told you about finding you if you were stolen?”

Steve nodded, his eyes wide.

“OK, I want you to remember that. I have to go and talk to the bad guy - we hope we can convince him to stop being a bad guy - and my friend, Vision, is gonna look after you for a bit. Vision will keep you safe. Won’t you, Vis?”

“It would be my honour, Steve,” Vision said gravely, still with that same gentle smile. He held out his hand. “Will you come with me?”

After a moment, Steve reached up and took his hand. He looked back up at Tony questioningly.

Tony nodded. “There you go. You hold on to Vision’s hand, OK? He’ll look after you until I come back.” 

“OK,” Steve whispered. “I’ll wait.”

“Good.” Tony exhaled in relief. “That’s… that’s good.” He patted Steve gently, then got back to his feet. “Vis,” he said quietly, turning away so that he could murmur in Vision’s ear, “he gets frightened easily, and he hasn’t been sleeping well. Don’t leave him on his own, OK?”

There was an odd look on Vision’s face as he pulled away. “Of course,” he agreed. “I will take good care of him. Please do not worry.” 

Tony looked back at where the others were waiting. Romanoff had turned away to give him the illusion of privacy, Lang was looking at his watch, and Barnes… Barnes was just _staring._ “You know, that’s still creepy,” he called out. Barnes did not seem perturbed by this. _It’s like being stink-eyed by the Terminator._ He hugged Steve to him one final time and then stepped away. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised, and patted Vision’s arm. 

Steve made a sharp sound as Tony turned away, but he did not call out.

“Stark, hurry up,” Barnes said finally, sounding displeased.

Steve made another sharp sound, almost a sob.

_He’ll be fine. Vision is with him. He’ll be fine._ Tony clenched his fists and forced himself to keep walking. 

*

T’Challa was inside the containment cell. This did not strike Tony as the greatest plan ever. “I thought you were supposed to be in charge of him? Aren’t there rules in place, or does he go all James T Kirk on you whenever he pleases?” Admittedly it was probably a little tricky to babysit a king if he wanted to play at superhero, but he was surprised that Okoye had permitted it. Tony glanced back at Romanoff. “Did you know about this?”

She shrugged and went straight to the large screen where the stand-off was displayed, Lang and Barnes at her side. 

Okoye did not seem particularly pleased to see Tony, barely sparing him a glance as she glared daggers at the swordsman on the screen. “He is stubborn,” she said, sounding frustrated. “They are both stubborn.” She said something else in a language Tony didn’t recognise, but by inference thought was not particularly complimentary about either T’Challa or M’Baku’s sense of self-preservation. Beside her, one of the other Dora smirked. The Jabariland warriors behind them looked long-suffering.

Barton, sat in front of a separate screen with Wanda by his side, looked up at Tony briefly. “I think that means she doesn’t want to get in the way of the epic bromance.”

“... right.” Tony turned to the screen, where T’Challa was lounging in a chair opposite the swordsman, looking for all the world as if he was on a yacht. M’Baku was at his shoulder, silent and menacing. _I don’t even wanna know._

The swordsman did not appear to be the least bit impressed by the intimidation tactic. “I am waiting,” he said amiably, “but my patience is not infinite.” He was sans sword, at least, but otherwise he looked the same as when he had attacked the palace, Tony noticed. However they had captured a guy, he didn’t have a fucking scratch on him.

“Much like your power,” T’Challa observed with a smirk. “I do hope you are… comfortable.”

Copies of Wanda’s bracelet were around the swordsman’s wrists, crackling faintly with power at random intervals. Tony guessed that it was the swordsman’s work, testing for weaknesses.

“These?” The swordsman raised his arms, looking from one to the other, his expression untroubled. “They are temporary.” He lowered them back slowly, as if to stress that T’Challa should not underestimate him. “I assume you wanted to talk. You have gone to all this trouble.” His eyes narrowed. “What are you waiting for?”

Tony looked at Okoye out of the corner of his eye. “What _is_ he waiting for?” She didn’t respond. He turned to look at Romanoff. “Nat?”

She shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “You’ll like this.” She pointed to the screen Wanda was sat in front of, which had a split-screen of the swordsman’s wrists, the bracelets still crackling with power. “Wanda?”

“Give me a minute.” There was strain in Wanda’s voice, her hands clenched. Her own bracelet sat open on the table in front of her, inert, as she focused. 

Tony stared at the zoomed-in image. It took a minute - maybe longer - but he finally saw what Wanda was doing. Every time the bracelets crackled, she would tense up a little, her own magic flaring, pushing against the swordsman’s power. “Wanda…”

“I’m OK,” she whispered, almost to herself. “I’m in control. I’m in control. I’m in control.”

Tony’s eyes flickered up to the main viewscreen. The swordsman was… “Huh.” He was _sweating._ Maybe this wasn’t a hopeless case after all. 

It took almost ten minutes of the push and pull, of the swordsman’s power testing the bracelets and Wanda tightening her grip on him. It wasn’t just raw power that was at stake, of course; they didn’t want him incapacitated if they could use him. They just wanted him… contained. Wrapped up tight inside the dampeners, held and contained and _managed_. If they could show him that they could knock him out _and_ puppet him effectively…

Tony felt a chill at the thought. It wasn’t at all like what had been done to him and Bruce, of course, but… well, the intent was the same. _Push him in a corner until he does what we want. Lean on him, until he buckles._ Wanda wasn’t messing with his mind, just displaying magical muscle. No, the push was coming from the rest of them, showing just how well they could hold the guy at a knife-edge without tipping either way.

_Well, maybe if he didn’t want to be coerced he shouldn’t have come after Steve with a fucking sword._ No, he wasn’t going to be losing any sleep over this.

“What is it you hope to accomplish?” The swordsman asked, sneering faintly. Tony could see the thin sheen of sweat beading on his brow. “Why this elaborate production? Surely it is easier to simply kill me.” 

“We have no wish to kill you.” T’Challa leaned forward, his most conciliatory face on. “You are the one who attacked us. Who are you? Why are you trying to hurt the child?”

The swordsman smiled at that, amused. “He is not a child. And I have no intention of killing him.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Tony muttered. 

“I have thirty-two dead guards who would disagree with that statement,” T’Challa said, his voice eminently reasonable. “Who are you, and what do you want with the child? I will not ask again.” At that, M’Baku shifted silently from foot to foot.

The swordsman’s eyes flickered to him, then back to T’Challa. “Ah, yes, the threat of violence. How original.” He was silent for a moment, calculating. “Very well. As a show of good faith… My name is Karl Mordo. And all I want with your time-altered friend is a link back to…” He hesitated. “To whoever altered him,” he finished.

Tony had the overwhelming impression that it was not what he had originally intended to say. “He’s hiding something,” he muttered.

T’Challa seemed to concur with that assessment. “To join her?” He asked softly.

Mordo’s face hardened at this, recognition flickering in his eyes. _Bingo,_ Tony thought. _Yeah, let’s dispense with this little charade. We both know we’re chasing down a woman._ But Mordo hadn’t known they’d been aware of that little factoid, had he? That was surprise in his face. So what did that tell them? _Either he’s seen the same interview we have, or seen her in the flesh, or he knows her work enough to recognise her from it._

“To kill her.” Mordo said softly. He looked away. “You are wasting time in detaining me here. All I need is the child, and I will be able to track her down.” He spread his hands and tried for a smile. “Surely we can agree that allowing her to continue is not acceptable. The child - he is a link back to he. I can use him to find her.”

“And then what?” M’Baku asked, sounding bored. “You will twirl your little sword and she will tremble?”

Mordo’s smile widened. “Something like that.” He looked at T’Challa. “She is not human. I have fought her kind before, and I recognise what she is, where she belongs. She is a grave threat which must be removed from this Dimension before she causes irreparable damage. Perhaps I should have chosen a different approach, but I did not believe that you would surrender the child to me without a fight. Was I wrong?”

T’Challa stared at him for a short while. “What sort of threat?”

*

“Are you _kidding_ me?” He couldn’t fucking believe it. Well, no, given the way his life had been going lately he absolutely _could_ believe it, but - damnit, he’d been holding out hope that T’Challa was a voice of fucking reason, a kindred spirit, a - a - _not a complete idiot!_ “General, are you on board with this fucking nonsense?”

Judging by her expression, Okoye was as unimpressed as he was.

“I am sure the king has good reason to -”

_OK, scratch that._ Her first loyalty would be to the crown; her first priority would be having T’Challa’s back. Which was fine, except in cases where T’Challa decided to make stupid fucking decisions.

“Yeah, no, I’m not OK with this.” He didn’t fucking care what sort of yarn this guy was spinning. Not after what he’d tried to do to the kid.

He had the faceplate down and the repulsors powered up before the cell door was even open. 

“Stark…” Barnes grabbed his arm. “Wait, Stark!”

Tony shoved him off and pushed past Okoye to reach the cell door as it slid open. He had a repulsor six inches from Mordo’s face before Barnes rounded the corner and caught up to him, Wanda on his heels. “That’s close enough, D’Artagnan,” he snapped. “Back inside.”

Mordo looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at T’Challa. “Ah. There is not a consensus?”

“Stand down, Stark,” M’Baku growled, and closed one large hand around Mordo’s bicep. “He is not going anywhere without a guard. We are in control, here. There is no need for panic.”

“Were you even paying attention in there - he killed thirty-two guards already! And god knows how many others we don’t know about! And now you’re just going to let him go?” Let him go and give him access to _Steve_ ; Christ, this better be one giant plan-within-a-plan or he was gonna put T’Challa’s head on backwards for this double-cross.

Mordo looked up at him. He sounded genuinely regretful. “You do not trust me. I understand; I have caused you harm. You are concerned for the child. But I promise you, Dr Stark, I do not intend to hurt him. And our goals are the same. We all wish to stop her.”

“Right, and I’m just supposed to believe you on this?”

Wanda reached out a hand and laid it on Tony’s arm. “Tony.”

“ _No_ , are you kidding me? You think I’m just going to let you hand Steve over -”

“No one is handing anyone over,” T’Challa broke in. M’Baku tugged Mordo out of the way and T’Challa stepped in front of the prisoner, putting his body in between Tony’s repulsor and its target. 

Okoye said something sharp and uncomplimentary under her breath, making an abortive movement to get in front of T’Challa.

“If this sorceress is such a significant threat, we must all go.” He inclined his head. “I would not place the child in danger, Dr Stark.”

“Right,” Tony bit off, “just like you didn’t place him in danger to lure this guy here?” He could feel his pulse, hot and thick, thudding in his ears. They couldn’t do this. This wasn’t - it’d been bad enough he’d taken Peter with him to Berlin, when the kid was barely in his teens. It had been awful, a mistake, and he still woke up in a cold sweat thinking about everything that could have gone wrong. And now, now, what, he was supposed to be OK with taking Steve to a battlefield? Steve, who had asthma, who clung to Tony in his terror, who was alone and helpless and _seven years old_ \- “I’m in charge here, he’s _my_ responsibility, I’m his damn _guardian_ ; you made me sign the damn papers so if you think I’m just going to hand him over -”

T’Challa’s eyes widened in shock, his mouth hanging open.

Wanda broke in before T’Challa could answer, her hand still on Tony’s arm. “Tony,” she said again, quiet and sure. “Tony, please. I would not let any harm come to Steve. Believe me on this.” 

_Christ. That’s what it boils down to, doesn’t it? That’s only enough if I trust you. If I -_ He swallowed. “I need to know what we’re talking about here. No bullshit, no withheld information, no coy glances, OK? Everything. _Everything._ You went after a seven year old with a fucking sword, so you do not get the benefit of any doubt. You get to lay out everything you know, _all of it_ , and _maybe_ I consider not turning your head into Swiss cheese. Capisce?”

Mordo nodded slowly. 

Behind him, T’Challa exhaled. “Dr Stark -”

Tony held up a hand. “Don’t. Just - don’t.”

He marched out, barely able to keep a hold of his temper until he made it back inside the control room. “Goddamnit!” He slammed his fist into the table. Predictably, it buckled under the force of a gauntleted blow.

“Well, that is one table that will never pose a threat to us again,” Romanoff said dryly, closing the door behind her.

Tony spun around. “Did you know about this?” He bit out. Then, “what am I even saying; it’s a double-cross, so yeah, you were probably the architect. What, did you run out of people to turn on so you figured kids are fair game now?”

She folded her arms and leaned against the closed door, watching him silently.

“Nothing to say? Let me guess, I’m being emotional, I’m weak, I’m _compromised_ -”

She inclined her head to one side. “I see you listened to the recordings.”

That took the breath from Tony’s lungs, leaving him choking. “ _What?_ What the hell is wrong with you?”

She pushed away from the door, walking slowly across the room. Tony only realised he was backing up when his back hit the far wall. Romanoff looked up at him, her expression blank. “How much did you listen to?”

“That’s - this is really not the time.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, “I think it is. If it has affected you this badly.”

Tony fought the urge to laugh. His stomach was clenched into a painful knot, his chest heaving. He desperately wanted to close the faceplate, to have the familiar screen be the barrier between him and Romanoff’s disconcerting presence, but he couldn’t quite figure out a way to do so without it being a cowardly move. “I wonder what Rogers would say if he knew you shared his secrets so easily,” he said instead, trying to find her soft underbelly. “That you’re all on board with dangling him in front of a sword-wielding maniac. That - that you put him in my care. Christ, I thought you had it out for me, but maybe this is what you think friendship is like, huh? Flaying someone so they have no armour left. Too hard to break out of your pattern of looking for that goddamned weak spot.”

Her eyes were dark. “Well, it is in my DNA, as you say.” Her voice and face were perfectly expressionless, like computer recordings. 

So why the hell did Tony feel like he’d scored a hit? He swallowed and look away. _Yeah, and I’m a hypocrite to do exactly what I’m accusing you of._ “What do you want, Nat?” He was so fucking _tired._

She shook her head. “I didn’t lie, Tony. I want the team to be together. Everything else… we’ll work it out.”

“So that’s it? That’s the plan? That’s -” _stupid, childish, dangerous, pointless -_ “not gonna work. That’ll make everything worse.”

“Maybe,” she acknowledged soberly. “But I can’t think of any other way to make you see that you’re not a special snowflake.”

He gaped at her. “What?”

One elegant shoulder rose and fell. “What happened didn’t happen because the universe - or anyone else - has it out for you, Tony. Anymore than what’s happening now is a giant conspiracy to endanger Steve. Sometimes, sometimes…” She bit her lip. “Sometimes, people get it wrong. Sometimes they screw up. Sometimes _we_ screw up.”

_Christ._ He rubbed at his face tiredly. He’d half-known what she was going to say; for all her cynicism, Nat had an annoying habit of expecting the best of them. _Most of them. Not me. She was always very clear just where I fell in her estimation._ “I gotta say, ‘we’re all shit at everything’ is not really the sterling defence you seem to think it is.” No matter how true it might be. _Besides. The ‘screw up’ defence only works if you’re willing to acknowledge you screwed up, apologise, and do better._ He’d had a pristine example of how not to do it in the form of Rogers’s fucking letter. If ever there was a _sorry if you were offended…_ pro forma… _Up next, Rogers apologises for writing crap fucking apologies._ Not that Tony could talk; he’d failed spectacularly in his own apologies to both Pepper and Rhodey on numerous occasions.

“I wasn’t aware I needed a defence. Not with you.” She looked up at him from under her lashes. Once upon a time, she’d used this same move to ingratiate herself as Natalie Rushman; later, she’d used it again and again to tease, to show him that she trusted him to handle it. To let him see all the tools at her disposal. Now… 

He thought back to the feeling of Steve’s hand in his. To the soft catch of Steve’s breath as Tony walked away. 

(To the sob Tony had heard on that damned recording, like peeling open a private wound to leave it wet and bleeding and exposed.)

He took a step back. “I can’t,” he said, soft and quiet. “It’s too much to ask. You can’t force it. I can’t - this isn’t something I can deal with while Rogers is in absentia.”

To his surprise, she nodded. “I know,” she said quietly. “That’s why I told you to listen. So you’d remember there is still unfinished business.” She looked up at him and smiled. “You know, I had a whole section in your assessment - your first team assessment - about your compulsive need for family. You look for it everywhere you go. You collect people into it, and when you need more than what’s there, you make them yourself, with your own hands.” She reached out and closed a hand around his gauntleted wrist. “Every time you look at that child, I want you to remember that you can’t resolve anything that happened between you until Steve is back.”

His mouth was dry. “I know that.”

“Do you?” She pursed her lips. “That child… he has already lived his life once. He has a mother, and a home. Maybe not right now, but… don’t make the mistake of thinking this way is easier. That it would be less complicated. The longer we leave it, the harder it’ll be to turn him back.”

“On him?”

Her gaze was pitying. “On you.” 

He couldn’t say anything to that. There was a lump in his throat, as if his heart had jumped up to lodge there. _Look what you could have, if you’re brave enough and selfish enough._ He’d been brave and selfish when he’d built DUMM-E, when he’d laid down the groundwork for JARVIS. When he’d kissed Pepper, when he’d co-opted Rhodey into his life wholesale. He’d opened up the Tower to a team of strangers, and then built an entire new facility for them. He’d eaten pizza with Clint, and watched films with Nat, and sat up late talking with Steve and -

_D’you promise? If - if I get lost, you’ll come find me?_

_Tony, my sweetheart. If he’s not yours, then whose is he?_

She looked down at her fingers around his wrist, watching as the gauntlet retracted, leaving Tony’s hand bare. Slowly, carefully, she tucked her hand in his.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who know their Doctor Strange comicverse may have already worked out who our mystery evil sorceress is. Mordo certainly has, and he's not terribly pleased.
> 
> Nat did Tony's initial team assessment - in fact, my headcanon is that she did _all_ the team assessments - and Tony's tendency to build himself family is pretty obvious. Not much of a stretch for her to take one look at Tony carrying in a child Steve and immediately think, "oh, no, this is gonna be a disaster." She yeah, she takes precautions - partly by shoving the adult Steve memories at Tony, and partly by cutting him out of the loop on anything where she (correctly) guesses he'll be dead against the most strategic course of action, because it would endanger Steve. 
> 
> T'Challa is very much the Wakandan James T Kirk. M'Baku is... I guess the Wakandan Spock? (Don't overthink it.) Anyway, they're both leaders, they are both used to setting their personal feelings aside for the greater good, and frankly, if they can work with (a controlled, monitored, under their thumb) Mordo to prevent what is a big crisis about to happen, they damn well will.
> 
> Okoye wishes that T'Challa will stop running headlong into danger, but knows that she will never get that wish. 
> 
> Comments are love.


	19. Chapter 19

Mordo might have been many things - psychotic and disturbingly persuasive were chief among them - but one thing he was evidently _not_ , was stupid. 

“I will not harm the child,” he said, the moment Tony walked back in the room, Romanoff at his side.

Everyone had decamped to the briefing room - _just in time to sing kumbaya_ , Tony thought with disgust - and Mordo was sat at the table alongside everyone else. Of course, he had Wanda on one side on him and Barnes on the other, so perhaps T’Challa hadn’t entirely lost the plot. 

Dropping back down at the table, Tony sighed and rubbed at his exposed hand. He was so fucking tired of all of this. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word on it.”

“Neither will I,” T’Challa said, in the tone of one brooking no disagreements. “We have taken precautions.” He inclined his head towards Mordo’s new best friends. 

Wanda, of course, wasn’t wearing her bracelet (it was tucked into Okoye’s belt). “And how do the ‘precautions’ feel about that?”

“We shall all work together for the common goal,” Wanda said, with a sideways glance at the man sat next to her. Her lip curled in disgust, red sparks flying around her fingers. “No matter our own feelings.” 

Mordo inclined his head in acknowledgement. He seemed to find sitting next to Wanda just as distasteful - a little hypocritical, Tony thought, for someone who seemed just as much a magic user as she was. Perhaps there was more than one kind of magic, or maybe Mordo had a different beef with her?

_Or maybe he just doesn’t like us, shock horror,_ he thought wryly, and sat down next to M’Baku, affecting not to notice Romanoff sitting down in the free seat next to him. He still wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about her, even taking her stated intentions at face value. _Manipulating me for my own good is still manipulating me, Nat. And sticking a needle in my neck, that was also for my own good, wasn’t it?_ He might be vulnerable himself to the temptation to decide on other people’s behalf - keeping the palladium poisoning from Pep and Rhodey, and locking Wanda away, being two notable examples - but at least he acknowledged that it was on _him_ , not a weakness of theirs that they failed to see it. 

It had also occurred to him - more than once - that there was really only one place that Rogers could have learned about Barnes’s involvement in the murders of Howard and Maria Stark. And unless Tony was missing his mark by quite some distance, Romanoff had been right by his side when it had all gone down.

_Was that for my own good as well? Or maybe it was for the good of the team, and my feelings on the matter were secondary._

The problem was, much as he might love Natasha - and he wasn’t going to argue on _that_ point, the whole lot of them had wormed their way into his heart, like an infestation he was helpless to defend against - he didn’t trust her. In battle, sure, but not to have his back. On the list of people she cared about, he imagined he came fairly low on the totem pole, perhaps a step or two higher than Justin Hammer. 

Even over the Accords, that hadn’t been trust, that had been… reliance that her self-interest had aligned with his position. (It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him that she’d switch sides; he’d been half-expecting it, after all. What could he offer her to stay with him that Rogers couldn’t provide, a thousand times over?)

And as for this latest debacle… he could see that his indifference was hurting her. It was obvious, in the way she had reached for his hand, and he had permitted. In the way she had squeezed, and he had… permitted it.

(In the way that she had told him what sounded good, what sounded positive, what sounded _plausible_ , and he had _permitted_ it.)

Wasn’t that the problem? That he could _see_ her hurt, and therefore couldn’t trust it?

(Maybe it would have been better if she had been just as cold in turn. That, at least, he knew what to do with. Not a Natasha visibly hurt over his jibes. Not one who seemed to be trying to meet him halfway.)

_The problem with building a relationship out of lies is that even if you tell the truth, you won’t be believed._ He knew that, first hand. (He still couldn’t tell Pep he was ‘fine’. Those words were now forbidden, stricken from the vocabulary of their friendship. He had said them one too many times, and now, _I’m fine, Pep,_ translated roughly into, _I have a few days left to live, please remember where I’ve filed my will._

So yeah, it was entirely possible that Nat’s position had been laid bare for him. He just couldn’t bring himself to taker her word on it, no matter how appealing it might have been to think that she was just looking out for them.

His eyes slid to her and away again, taking in the tension in her frame. She clearly hadn’t entirely bought his show of acquiescence, if the tightness around her eyes was anything to go by. Well, he hadn’t held back, had he? He’d gone in for the jugular himself, both times.

_So we’re both liars. This is absolutely a great plan, I see nothing whatsoever going wrong with this._ He’d never precisely trusted her in a personal capacity, of course, but he’d previously been fairly sure she’d have his back in the field. (He’d been fairly sure of that with all of them, hadn’t he? And look how well _that_ had turned out.) And now… _Well, if either of us die because of this, it’ll be a prime example of being hoist by your own petard._ None of them were exactly poster boys and girls for well-adjusted, mentally balanced individuals, anyway.

He cleared his throat. “Well, I think my own feelings are pretty clear. I don’t like people who chop up little kids. Kind of a red line for me; I’m funny that way. So,” he brought his hands together, “if you say you’re not one of those people, who are you, exactly?”

“Do you not think that the primary concern should be our common enemy?” Mordo asked, his tone mild and his expression even. 

M’Baku made a low sound of amusement at that. “And who is that, exactly?” He raised an eyebrow. “The threat, yes, you have made much of that, and so we will listen. But you must show your worth to us, if we are to have a truce.”

Across the table, Okoye was nodding slowly in agreement. 

Mordo folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, his lips quirking as Barnes jolted next to him at the movement. “I did not bring a resume with me. I trust that you will not require character references?”

“A couple of testimonials wouldn’t go amiss,” Barton drawled from his seat beside Romanoff. His fingers were drumming on the table. “Maybe a video recommendation or two.”

“Ah. Yes. I am afraid that those best placed to do so…” Mordo tilted his head, pursing his lips. “Well, we did not part on the best of terms. We disagreed on some fundamentals.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Did… did it have anything to do with you stabbing random people? ‘Cause, let me tell you, at the moment I’m mostly on _their_ side, D’Artagnan. You haven’t exactly endeared yourself to anyone here.” 

Mordo glared at Tony. “Nor do I expect to. I will not go into the particulars of our disagreement; suffice to say that it would be beyond your comprehension. Or frame of reference. Nevertheless…” He frowned. “What do you know about the attacks in London and Hong Kong, a few months ago?”

Tony had been somewhat preoccupied at the time, what with the Accords and BARF and… everything. “What attacks?”

Mordo sighed. “All right. Well… two of the places of power for magic-users were attacked by followers of an entity they wished to give dominion over our dimension. I was one of those defending it. We were - eventually - successful in repelling the attack. However, the existing defences were significantly damaged. I believe that this temporary weakness is what has prompted these new attacks.” He spread his hands. “It is difficult to explain. The entity - he is called Dormammu - is immensely powerful in his realm. Allowing him access to our dimension would have ended life here.”

“But you won, right?” Tony asked, a trifle skeptically. “You beat back Tweedledum through the Looking Glass and all is saved?”

There was a strange look in Mordo’s eyes at that. “An apt choice of words. Tweedledum… well, let us say that although Tweedledum was safely beaten back, Tweedledee is still here, and eager to reunite with her sibling.”

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ “And, what, you failed to notice there were _two_ of them?” He snapped. “I don’t buy it.” 

“Then it is lucky that it is not for sale,” Mordo said, just as sharply. “Hundreds of my compatriots lost their lives in fighting Dormammu and his followers, and all because our _leader_ chose to withhold the source of her power, to pretend that she was somehow morally pure.” His rage was palpable, every muscle in his body taut. “One of the sanctums was destroyed entirely, and the other is still only partly rebuilt. Only New York stands whole, and is protected by someone who is -” his eyes narrowed, “- just like you. And you ask why _I_ didn’t know about her? When she has been here for millennia, hidden from sight? When I cannot access the libraries, when I -”

“So how do you know it is her?” T’Challa broke in. “You said that she posed a threat to this entire Dimension, that if she is not stopped, reality itself is in peril. And yet you tell us that you do not have access to any of the information that would be useful, and that there has been sundering between you and your allies. How do you know what you know, and - forgive me -” his expression was hard, “what _use_ are you to us?”

_I changed my mind, I love you the best,_ Tony thought. “Seconded,” he said, his eyes on Mordo.

For his part, Mordo seemed to take the challenge well. “Because you do not have any choice,” he said simply. “I know her the way you would know a seraph, were one to appear, from their eyes and wings. Even the least learned among you would know the power of what you were looking at, and would tremble before it.” He spread his hands. “I do not need to have seen her to know those portals are Umar’s work. I do not know what she is doing, or why her victims are thus afflicted, but I can guess that it is to access the powers long-denied her in her current form. I cannot imagine any other motivation for her. And if she is successful - if she is able to access her full power, her original form - it would be as if Dormammu himself were here.” There were a lot of blank looks around the table. Mordo looked heavenward, as if asking for divine intervention. “Hell on earth,” he said simply for the benefit of those without a magical education. “The two of them would consume this dimension until there was not a living soul left.”

“... right.” Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose. _Are you kidding me._ “Of course. _Obviously._ Hell on earth. Why didn’t I think of that? I mean, it’s not like any of this is verifiable, right?” What the hell kind of creature was this Umar, if this guy was likening running into her to an encounter with a _seraph_? 

Tony had never been much of a church-goer, even back when his mother had insisted on it, but he had had enough Bible verses browbeaten into him by his boarding school Masters to know Mordo wasn’t talking about the modern blonde-hair-and-wings angel model. _Six wings and covered in eyes..._ and hadn’t there been something about a perpetual flame? Or serpents? Something fairly unforgettable, as images went, anyway. 

“ _Is_ it verifiable?” He asked sharply. “Or are we going on Gnostic texts at this point? What next, a quick round with the Apocrypha?”

M’Baku rolled his shoulders back. “Stark makes a good point. Fairy tales and monsters - it is a good story. But all we have are children’s corpses and radiation. For all we know, you are working with this butcher and this is simply a ploy to access the one child you have not slaughtered, yet.”

_Or he could be telling the truth, up to a point, but neglecting to tell us something equally important,_ Tony thought, with a glance at Romanoff. _Hiding a lie inside a truth. Maybe all of this about the sorceress is true, but this guy sliced his way through a sizeable portion of the palace guard. There is no way that’s all of it._ Romanoff met his gaze and nodded slightly. _There we go._ She didn’t trust him, either.

“So there is no one who could vouch for you?” Romanoff asked, almost apologetically. “You must know that nothing you have said would mean we would give you access to the child.”

Mordo inclined his head. “I do. I suppose… well, I had intended to do this on my own, but I suppose it does not make much difference.” He looked across at Tony, his expression calculating. “I could take you - and the child - to the Hong Kong sanctum. The Master would be able to help us.”

“Hong Kong?” Tony asked sharply. “Not New York?”

Mordo met his gaze. “No. Not New York.”

_Well, then._ There was definitely something there. Tony made a mental note to watch out for any sorcerers and wizards when he was back in New York, if they were running some sort of holy place right under his nose. Not that he’d be able to necessarily spot them, of course, if they were anything like Mordo, of course, but - well, if they were anything like Mordo, the body count would likely give them away.

That said, for all that going to Hong Kong held a certain appeal - he was sick and tired of being coddled - he wasn’t sure about the logistics of it. Could he bring Steve with him safely, if Mordo turned out to be planning a double-cross? Not that he could leave the child unattended - for pretty much the same reason - but maybe with Vision -

“Maybe we should pause here,” T’Challa broke in smoothly. “We shall consider your offer, Mr Mordo.”

The guards standing behind Mordo stepped forward, and the guy - to his credit - did not protest. He nodded politely to T’Challa - and Tony, of all people - and left with them, Wanda and Barnes still flanking him. Barnes looked back over one shoulder and nodded to Tony as he exited.

In the resulting silence, Tony sat back in his chair and spread his hands. “Who wants to go first?”

*

There had been a lot of shouting. T’Challa had kept order, and M’Baku had mostly disagreed with everyone, and Shuri had eventually conferenced in and had been _very_ put out to have missed all the excitement, but when it came right down to it, no one could agree on what to do. It was building up to a fairly full argument by the time Tony made up his mind. “If I go,” he said, and Lang paused mid-sentence to gape at him. “If I go, T’Challa, I don’t think it would be sensible to take Steve with me.” Not that he could remove Steve from Wakanda easily, of course, but the legalities of it didn’t seem the biggest issue at the moment.

“If _you_ go,” T’Challa agreed. “But perhaps _you_ do not need to go.”

That thought had occurred to Tony as well, but he had dismissed it. “Not if I am to trust him near Steve,” he said sharply. “I need to be sure.” He shrugged. “And, after all, I did see the results. Maybe whoever is in Hong Kong could do with a first-hand account.”

“I saw it too,” Barton pointed out quietly. “I could go in your place, if you want to stay here.”

That was the problem. He didn’t. They had too little information, and he’d been out of the loop so much that it was difficult to make informed inferences. And the others… Romanoff might well put all the pieces together, he couldn’t dispute that. (But would she tell him?)

“If I go,” he said again, “Vision would need to remain here, with Steve.”

T’Challa nodded at that, looking thoughtful. “You will need Maximoff and Barnes with you, to contain him. And -” his eyes flickered to Barton. “Perhaps one other?”

_God, I wish Rhodey was here,_ Tony thought, his heart clenching. He wanted Rhodey, he wanted to someone he could _trust_. And he knew he needed to leave Barton here, as someone Steve was familiar with, so it would be less frightening for him. But if he didn’t take Barton, then who did that leave him with? Romanoff?

(Could he trust her at his back? Her, and Barnes, and Wanda?)

“Yeah,” he said, and looked at where Barton was staring fixedly at the tabletop. His chest felt like it was in a vice. He should leave Barton here, he should take _Romanoff_ \- “Yeah, if - if you’re up to a little trip, Barton.”

He did not dare look to his side, where Romanoff was carefully looking down at her hands, her expression fixed.

*

Telling Steve was infinitely harder. 

Vision had taken him to an entirely different part of the mountain range, to what was probably the Wakandan equivalent of a kindergarten class. At any rate, there were plenty of children there, all busy finger-painting and getting more paint on their clothes than on the paper. (Steve was mostly covered in green by this point.)

“How was the discussion?” Vision asked, from his perch atop one of the nearby tables.

Tony sprawled down next to him, feeling exhausted already. “We’re going on a field trip.” He looked at where Steve was still busily making green handprints on the paper (and the table), not having noticed him yet. “How was he?”

“Well-behaved,” Vision said, as if this was the highest compliment he could bestow.

“Yeah.” _He’s a good kid._ They watched the children in silence for a little while. After a moment, Tony became aware of another presence and looked up, surprised. “What are you doing here?” He hadn’t noticed anyone else headed this way.

“Much the same thing you are,” M’Baku said, smiling. He’d changed his clothes; he must had stopped off at his quarters. It was strange to see him without all that ceremonial fur and so forth; he was still impressively broad-shouldered, but a little less… imposing. “Tjaila!” M’Baku called out, and two children looked up, grinning. One was about the same age as Steve; the other a bit younger, around four or five. They both clambered to their feet and ran over to M’Baku, grabbing hold of a leg each.

“You have children holding on your legs,” Tony said, blinking. (They were also both mostly covered in green paint.) 

“They do that,” M’Baku agreed. He nodded back at the group of children. “You will also have one shortly, I think.”

_Well, he’s not wrong,_ Tony thought, a millisecond before Steve spotted him and immediately ran over, a bright smile on his face. The child hesitated for a moment, then seemed to take his cue from the kids crowding M’Baku and clambered over Tony to demand his own embrace.

“I will leave you to talk,” M’Baku advised, hoisting his children up in his arms. The littlest said something in a language Tony didn’t understand and immediately wrapped her arms about her daddy’s neck, smearing green paint on his cheek. He nodded cordially to Vision and walked out, his arms wrapped securely around his kids.

Watching him go, Tony felt a stab of - something. It wasn’t quite wistfulness, and it wasn’t quite sadness, but it seemed somewhere between the two. Like an ache in a phantom limb. _No time to be indulgent, Stark; get it together._ He shook his head and bent to gather up Steve in his arms. “Hey, kiddo. How was your play-date?”

Steve smiled toothily at him, showing his green hands. “I made art with my hands!”

“You sure did,” Tony agreed, smiling despite himself. “Wanna bring it home with you?”

Steve nodded and ran off to collect his artwork. 

Vision watched him gathering up all his bits of paper. “I take it we do not have good news.”

“Sort of.” He looked back at Vision, taking in the faux-human guise. “Was he really OK with you?”

Vision looked back at him, his expression open. “Stark. _Tony_. Is there something we need to discuss?”

Steve came back at that moment, arms full of (still-wet) paper. “Come back to the rooms with me,” Tony suggested instead. “We’ll talk there.” He looked down at Steve, who was tugging urgently on Tony’s hand. “What’ve you got there, kiddo?”

“I made an elephant,” Steve said with great dignity, and shoved the crumpled purple elephant at Tony. “See?”

“Well,” Tony said, gathering the child up and settling him against the suit on his hip, “that’s certainly an elephant right there. I’m impressed. Where’d you see one of those?”

“It was for my birthday,” Steve explained. “We went to the _zoo_ , and then Bucky an’ me had an _ice cream_ , and it was the _best_ birthday.” He held up his arms to demonstrate the immensity of the occasion, narrowly escaping clouting Tony about the head in his enthusiasm. “ _Ever._ ”

“Well, it sounds wonderful,” Tony agreed. “What else did you see at the zoo?”

They walked back companionably, Tony with the child in his arms, Vision by his side. _This is normality,_ Tony thought, and his chest ached again. _This. Having your friends and loved ones with you. Having routine. Having someone to go home to._

He wasn’t even sure what he was missing, exactly. It wasn’t as if he had any experience of this - from either side, really - so it was mostly still… fantastical. Something you could watch, akin to a movie, and imagine as perfect and rosy and wonderful.

( _Maybe,_ some small, mean part of him thought, _maybe Natasha was right. Maybe I’m just making this worse for myself in the long term._ )

“And we saw an _alligator,_ and a - a - _lion_ \- and - and - Bucky threw up from the ice cream, and I _didn’t_!” Steve slumped against Tony, clearly exhausted from his spirited re-telling of the Great Zoo Trip.

( _“Jarvis, Jarvis, Jarvis, look what I made, look look!”_ )

_And what am I supposed to tell him?_ He thought, desperately. _Hey, kid, d’you remember that guy that tried to kill you? Well, the two of us are gonna go on a little city break together, nothing too serious, just a couple of days in Hong Kong. But don’t worry, this guy you’ve only just met is gonna watch over you and make sure that the murderer I’m going off with doesn’t double back and kill you while our backs are turned._ That was gonna go over like a lead balloon. “D’you have fun with the other kids?”

“Uh huh,” Steve mumbled, cuddling into Tony’s chest. “But I’m tired now. Can we go home?” He reached up with sticky fingers to hold on to the edge of the suit’s collar, his head on Tony’s chest, lit up in blue by the glow of the arc reactor.

“... sure,” Tony said, ignoring Vision’s inquisitive gaze. “Sure, we can do that.”

_I’ll tell him tomorrow,_ he thought desperately. _There’s no point distressing him tonight, I’ll tell him before we head off tomorrow._

After a moment he pressed his lips to the top of Steve’s head, careless of the green paint.

*

The next morning, he was at the door before Barton came to collect him.

“Are you ready?” Barton looked past him, to where Steve was in the doorway, wrapped up in his entire bedding, clearly distressed. “Uh, I’ll give you a moment.”

_I’m gonna need more than a moment,_ Tony thought, clenching his teeth. _Come on. Get it together._ The morning had not gone well. Steve had immediately figured out that something bad was going to happen by the presence of Vision and Romanoff, who had turned up a little after 6am armed with age-appropriate toys and a truly impressive array of weaponry. 

Steve had... not taken it well.

He turned back to the child, kneeling in front of him. “I’ll be back soon. Two days at most.”

Steve stared at him, his eyes huge. (He still had the odd bit of green paint in his hair that Tony hadn’t been able to wash out the night before and had eventually surrendered to.) He didn’t say anything.

“Hey.” Tony put his hands on the child’s shoulders and drew him in for a hug, bedding and all. “I promise, OK? I’ll be back in two days.” He drew back, smoothing down Steve’s hair. “I need you to be brave for Vision, OK? I need you to listen to what he says.”

More silence. Helplessly, Tony looked up at Romanoff and Vision, standing in the bedroom hallway. “He - he needs a bedtime story,” he said, stumbling over his words in his haste to get them out. “And he - he needs -” He couldn’t think. The armour was assembled, the team was waiting for him by the jet, he just needed to -

“I’ll speak to Rhodes,” Vision said. “If he is well enough to travel, I will ask him to come out.”

Something unclenched in Tony at that. “Good, that’s - thanks, Vis. That would be good.” Rhodey and Wilson, they’d both put Steve first. And Vision could get him out of danger if it all turned sour. It would be OK. M’Baku felt confident enough in the security to let his kids play with Steve, didn’t he? He’d hardly do that if he thought Steve was being actively targeted. It was fine. It was _fine_.

“I’ll be back in two days,” he told Steve, who was still clinging, frozen, to his hand, the small face terrified. He pulled free of the child’s grip and stood up. “I promise.”

*

“You OK?” Barton asked when they were outside.

Tony took a deep breath of mountain air, closing his eyes against the memory of Steve’s pale face, tight with terror. “I’m fine, Legolas. Let’s get on with it.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like every chapter for the last few months has been "and this one was _so_ hard". *pokes fic* I know where I want it to go, but it keeps veering off down random little side-streets and I keep having to herd everyone back to where I need them to be for the plot. 
> 
> Anyway, notes. Tjaila is Xhosa slang for "time to go (home)", although again I'm entirely reliant on Google and Wiki for this. Steve greatly enjoyed the finger-painting, and he is 100000% not enjoying having that followed up with Tony going away. Tony doesn't have the best feeling about this, either. 
> 
> Umar is comicverse Dr Strange's mother-in-law, so let's all take a moment to let that sink in. She is Dormammu's sister, stranded in human form for Reasons (tm), and as we haven't seen her in the MCU yet I am taking full advantage of this to make use of whatever bits of comicverse I need and discard the rest. There's acres of canon on this and I'm basically treating it like pick'n'mix.
> 
> Mordo would 100% prefer any version of the plan to involve him being in charge, and not being leaned on by Wanda. Them's the breaks, Mordo, maybe don't go after Steve's head and everyone would play nicer.
> 
> Tony and Nat, aaaah, OK. So, this was one of those relationships that I really had a lot of background thinking done on, and then Tony just... kept forgiving her and regretting it. There were about six versions of that before I managed to get him to a state of treading water. And Nat... I think she gets that this might be a burned bridge too far, but she also gets how effective she is with Tony, and how hard he has to work to not just fall back into old patterns. (Old patterns of affection, I guess, rather than necessarily trust - because I don't quite see trust there, although I do see affection and respect.) And she's pushing him a little, and he can see it and isn't keen on it. I think he trusts Clint more because Barton is a little less good at what he does, a little more exposed. 
> 
> Tony is absolutely not "fine". Ditto Steve. 
> 
> Comments are love.


	20. Chapter 20

Mordo’s new modus operandi seemed to be focused on making peace with Tony, probably so his sudden yet inevitable betrayal later on would have some dramatic tension. At least, that was the only possible explanation Tony could come up for why the guy had chosen to sit next to him on the flight over when there was a perfectly serviceable seat next to, say, Barnes. As it is, Barnes had sat behind Tony and Wanda had sat in front of Mordo, beside Barton in the pilot’s seat. Okoye rounded off the team, busily examining her knives in the seat beside Barnes.

(If Tony had been a betting man, he’d have placed odds on why no one had protested Mordo deciding to sit with Tony rather than with one of the people who was capable of restraining him. And those reasons would have started with, _he was boxed in_ , progressed through, _they’d judged Tony able to defend himself,_ and finished off with, _Wanda had a hell of a whammy on him._ On reflection, Tony thought that he was pretty OK with any of them.)

“Barton, how long?”

“I am not playing _are we there yet?_ with you,” Barton said peevishly, not turning around from the pilot’s seat. “It’ll be another six hours at least. Go read a book or something.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Unbunch your panties, Legolas, it was just a question.” He picked up the tablet beside him and tried to concentrate. Vision had sent him a check-in message via FRIDAY almost as soon as they’d been underway to reassure him that Steve had settled down and managed both his breakfast and his medication. Clearly, the management of one small, sickly child was not outside the joint capabilities of Vision and Nat; with both Lang and M’Baku still back at the mountain, there was plenty of back-up for both impromptu attacks and crying jags. They were fine. The kid was fine.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mordo regarding him gravely. After a couple of minutes of the scrutiny, he gave in, putting the tablet down. “What?”

“Nothing.” Mordo had the gumption to fucking _smile_ at him, as if they were _friends_. “It is just that… you remind me of someone.”

 _Peachy._ “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it was rude to stare?”

Mordo held up his arms in surrender, faint amusement still on his face. “My apologies. I shall endeavour to restrain myself from over-familiarity.”

Tony had the unpleasant sensation that he was being mocked in some way he couldn’t quite pin down. His eyes narrowed. “You know, I’m still not entirely sure why you’re not trussed up like a turkey at Thanksgiving down in the hold. Why do you merit a seat?”

Mordo shrugged a little and seemed to retreat at that, with a quick flickering glance at the back of Wanda’s head.

Her hands - and bare wrists - were clearly visible from Tony’s viewpoint. _Courtesy to another magic user?_ But no, that made no sense, they’d clearly despised each other from the very beginning. “Not a fan of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, huh?” His voice was too loud; he could see Wanda shifting, startled.

“No.” Mordo looked back at him steadily. “What has been done to her - and what she herself does now - is an abomination. And I am not overly fond of monsters.”

Tony really was wishing they’d tied up and gagged the guy and left him in the fucking hold. He could see Wanda stiffen in her seat, very pointedly _not_ turning around. “A monster, huh? Unlike you, I suppose?”

Mordo laughed, surprised. “Oh, no, Mr Stark.” He shook his head, wry amusement still clearly visible. “ _Precisely_ like me.”

He honestly didn’t know what the fuck to say to something like that. “Well, as long as you own it.”

“Oh, yes. Of that, you can be sure.” Mordo looked back down at his wrists, at the faint glow of Wanda’s magic on the bracelets keeping him in check.

It was the same red magic that still suffused Tony’s dreams, that had made him wake up on more than one occasion soaked in the smell of sour sweat and fear. The same magic that had blown Vision through several feet of concrete, the same magic that had turned Tony’s mind inside out.

The same magic that had kept him sane, if not precisely calm, during his concussed delirium.

_I hope to god Wanda’s strong enough to hold him. I don’t know what the hell we’d do otherwise._

Despite himself, he glanced over his shoulder at the seat directly behind his.

Barnes met his eyes without flinching and very slowly nodded.

*

An hour or so later, Mordo spoke up again. “My apology is quite genuine,” he said, his voice barely a murmur above the low hum of the jet in flight. “Circumstances dictated my actions, but that does not mean that I am blind to the consequences of them. I had understood that you were sheltering your friend. I had not grasped that you viewed him as…” He faltered at the look in Tony’s eyes. “That is, that the impact would be quite so profound.” He shifted a little in his seat, stilling when Wanda’s eyes snapped to him at the movement. “Perhaps I should have tried a different approach.”

“Than killing thirty two people and trying to abduct a seven year old out from under our noses? Yeah, maybe you shoulda workshopped that idea as little more.”

That drew a startled laugh out of Mordo, and a snort from Okoye. “As I said. My apology is quite genuine. My sole intention is stopping Umar; I have no quarrel with you or yours, Mr Stark. I do not do this for fun. I do it because it is necessary, and because to _not_ do it would be… unconscionable.” He sounded regretful, as if it had been a particularly unpleasant duty he had been forced - by conscience or by compulsion - to discharge. A duty he regretted the necessity of, if not the fulfillment of it.

Something he would do again, without hesitation.

_You think you fight for us? You just fight for yourself._

Tony’s breath caught somewhere south of his windpipe. “Oh?” He managed.

There was a certain nobility, he thought, in Mordo’s face. It was an intelligent, attractive face, with expressive eyes and an honest mien. It was the face of a statesman, or a teacher. It was a face that inspired trust.

 _Proof, if ever it was needed, that a good stylist can overcome any morality shortfall._ Put him in a suit, give him a lectern and an autocue, and he could be standing in front of world leaders explaining calmly, gently, why Umar was a grave threat, and why the world needed to work together. Why they should choose option A, and not option B. Why Mordo’s judgement on this should be relied upon.

Why they should trust him to do what was necessary.

And still, still…

_Who will avenge my son?_

“Why is it that _you_ get to make that choice? Mr Infallible. Who died and made _you_ God, huh?” He was half-out of his seat without even being aware of it, twisting around so he could glare at Mordo, the self-righteous, arrogant son of a bitch.

Mordo, who was looking back at him with perfect understanding and not responding. Finally, he sighed, and spread his hands. “The Ancient One,” he said. There was a small smile on his lips, oddly sad. “And believe me, please, I am fully aware of how flawed my reasoning is to both blame her for withholding information from us, and to yet miss her, and wish that she was here to make this choice for me instead. That I could continue for a little while longer in my state of blissful ignorance. But there is no one else, Mr Stark. There is no higher power I can appeal to, no more profound judgement I can trust. There is just - me.”

From the pilot’s seat floated back, “or whoever is running your New York temple,” in Barton’s dry tones. He, at least, did not seem particularly inclined to launch into a discussion of what Mordo’s motivation - and methods - might mean.

This did not seem to perturb Mordo as much as Barton might have wished. “Perhaps,” he said quietly. He looked back at Tony with that same open, sad look in his eyes. “Perhaps I should have asked him to choose instead. But you need to understand something: he would have made exactly the same choice.” Tony tensed at that, and Mordo shook his head in response. “Perhaps not the guards; maybe he would have taken a different approach. But the child? One life would not hold this world hostage. One life could _never_ hold this world hostage.” He looked away. “He would have made the same choice.”

Maybe. Tony hoped not. He hoped that whoever it was running the New York holy place - hell, whoever it was they were going out to meet in Hong Kong - was a little more considerate of the minor trappings of humanity.

(And if they weren’t? If the highest counsel in the land considered this matter and gave their expert, professional sanction to sacrificing a child for the good of the whole world?)

“Yeah, I guess I see why you’d have to tell yourself that, on account of having to live with yourself and all,” he said instead, and settled back in his seat.

Mordo shook his head and laughed softly.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He smiled again, almost avuncular in his concern. “It is just that… you do not trust yourself to make that choice. Nor anyone else, either, no matter what you say. If I had brought an army with me, if I had brought all those who have my powers and my knowledge, and together we had come for the child… your answer would have been no different. I find that amusing, given the circumstances.” He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, looking by all appearances ready for a nap. “Amusing, and a little sad.”

“I’m crying on the inside,” Tony snapped, and turned his attention back to the tablet. He didn’t want to spare any of his time and energy on this asshole. He had a lot to get through; Shuri and Jane had pushed through an update just before they’d boarded and there was a lot of new data to absorb. There was plenty to keep him occupied, even without the quiet ping from Vision letting him know that everything was OK with Steve.

A little while later, he looked across at where Mordo continued to sit perfectly still, his eyes closed, his body lax, without a hint of guilt for his actions. The noble statesman, willing to make the morally grey choices those around him shrank from; more sinned against than sinning.

_If I had brought an army with me…_

*

An hour out from Hong Kong International, he switched seats with Wanda.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he told Mordo unapologetically. “It’s just that I want to make it as easy as possible for Wanda to put you down like a rabid dog if you put even a foot out of line.” Or to hold him still for long enough for Okoye and Barnes to gut him, which he was also surprisingly OK with.

This seemed to amuse Mordo rather than disturb him. “As you say.” He seemed to be doing his best to pretend that Wanda wasn’t there, looking back down at the hands he held clasped loosely in his lap. “And when we land?”

Tony didn’t answer, sliding into Wanda’s vacated seat.

Beside him, Barton glanced over, his hands steady on the controls. “You’re in a foul mood.”

“As opposed to my normal disposition these days, which is sunshine and roses.”

“By comparison.” His voice dropped. “What did Sir Stabs-a-Lot have to say for himself?”

 _That the safest hands are his own._ “That he has an army at his disposal,” Tony murmured back. “That the whole lot of them are as fanatical as he is.”

“Huh.” Barton glanced over his shoulder furtively. “So this Hong Kong temple…”

“Yeah.” They had Mordo contained, just. And they were now walking into a place where there would be more of his kind, more wizards and sorcerers willing to sacrifice children on the altar of the greater good. Zealots and fanatics, completely convinced that what they were doing was necessary, was the right thing to do…

 _And what if they’re right?_ A small voice asked, and he quashed the thought ruthlessly. No. This wasn’t a Lovecraftian horror; there were no Old Gods to placate with a blood sacrifice.

 _Except for Umar._ Umar, who seemed to belong more to the tales of Ur and Babylon than in the modern world. Umar, who tore open the membranes between worlds with the pain contained in children’s bodies.

Umar, who might be terrible enough that Mordo viewed whatever actions he took to stop her as nothing more than a necessary sacrifice.

Tony had no illusions about the state of his own soul. He had not stepped away from weapons manufacturing because he intrinsically objected to the theory behind them. Weapons were - always - only a means to an end. When his father had founded the weapons manufacturing division of Stark Industries, that end had been victory in the war. (And money, always money - but money through ethical means, money through a moral industry.) An objective good, achieved by millions of little evils. The dead immolated in the torched cities had not been soldiers; it had not been self-defence except in the grandest of ways. The war had to be won in order to prevent a greater evil from prevailing. And so, someone - somewhere in a little room, thinking about the ends and not about the cost to his soul - had said, _yes_. _Yes, it is necessary._ And his father had not hesitated. Tony owed his existence to just that moral expediency; he owed his freedom to those men willing to take on the stains of killing on to their own souls for his benefit.

And after the war?

Better bombs. Smarter bombs. A larger stick with which to threaten the end of the other guy’s world.

Tony had not stopped weapons manufacturing because he had stopped believing in weapons. He had merely stopped believing in the effectiveness of the safeguards of the system. He would make the suits, and he would re-design the helicarriers, and he would make Barton better arrows, and Romanoff more effective electroshock bracelets, and he had not deluded himself that he was doing this because they could not be misused. All he had thought was, _I can control these directly. If it goes wrong, I can turn them off._

( _The safest hands are my own._ )

And here was Mordo, with the fervour and clarity of the martyr, of the religious zealot. _I regret it,_ he had said, as if he acknowledged the weight of what he had tried to do, and yet would do it again at the first opportunity.

And in Hong Kong - and New York - there were others like him. Others who dealt with threats the rest of the world could not comprehend.

Tony believed that oversight was necessary. No - he _knew_ it was. Without oversight, all he had to rely on was his own judgement, and he knew what lay down that road. And Tony’s oversight figured people like Pepper, like Rhodey, like T’Challa - capable, thoughtful people, people used to wielding power for the greater good, who would think long and hard about whether something was acceptable or not. Ethical, moral people who could be trusted to make those choices.

 _If I had brought an army with me…_ An army convinced it was right, fighting for what they believed was the greater good. The thing that would spare the world untold horrors.

And all they needed was access to one small, insignificant life.

 _I will not hurt the child,_ Mordo had said, but he did not view Steve as a child and there were plenty of ways Steve could be hurt that would not involve Mordo inflicting the pain himself. And if the alternative was worse, if the consequences of Umar winning were so dire, did what Mordo had planned still count as ‘hurt’? Or was it, in the basest sense of the term, an act of mercy?

“We’re in range,” Barton murmured. “How do you want to play this?”

There really wasn’t a choice at all.

*

“Are you certain you have the right place?” Okoye asked, looking around. “I do not see an entrance.”

“Mordo said it was around here.” _That’s assuming us mere mortals can access it._ He wondered if his choice to leave Mordo and the others back at the jet was overly cautious. But - no, no, it was the correct decision. If the Hong Kong temple was just as fanatical as Mordo was (and what temple did _he_ belong to?) then they’d have to manage the flow of information very carefully indeed. There would be nothing preventing Mordo’s Hong Kong buddies from portalling back to Jabariland, with Mordo as their guide, to track down Steve and finish what he’d started. No, Tony had to be certain of them first. _Check they’re not homicidal, check they can be reasoned with, check whether they can vouch for Mordo - in some way or another - and then… well, see what can be done._ And whether whatever it is Mordo thought he needed Steve for could be achieved without the child.

Okoye stopped at a 4-storey tong-lau building at the apex of the intersecting Lai Chi Kok Road and Tong Mi Road. “This must be it. Lui Seng Chun building, yes?” The street outside was bustling with end of the day choppers and tired commuters, the neon signs already bright in the fading daylight. Okoye was frowning. “It does not look especially… holy.”

“Probably the intention.” No one thought twice about a shop-front; put flashing neon signs on it and people tended to glaze over, their tired eyes skipping to the street crossing lights or the glare of the car headlights or the glow of their smartphones. (You could find Stark Tower by looking _up_ , not by staring directly at the innocuous facade.) Tony could picture this place as a holy headquarters very easily, especially if the disciplines could portal in and out. “After you.”

Okoye snorted at that but did not protest, pushing into the shop and heading for the back. _There will be a proprietor at the back desk,_ Mordo had told them, looking somewhat nonplussed to have been handcuffed to his seat. _You must ask for Master Minoru._ “Máahn ōn,” Okoye said to a young, pretty woman that Tony took to be the proprietor. “Néih sīk-m̀h-sīk góng Yīngmán a?”

The woman looked surprised. “Yes. Who are you?”

“We are… associates of Master Minoru. May we speak with him?”

The woman’s lip twitched. “Come with me.”

She led them through the back, up a rickety flight of stairs, and through a door that was labelled with the universally-understood pictogram of a toilet. (With an ‘out of order’ sign hanging on the door-knob.)

The room was… not a toilet.

“Well, this is very nice and not at all terrifying,” Tony said in the sudden silence, looking around with frank curiosity. “Training for something, are we?”

The teacher in the centre of the room - hands outstretched, a glowing golden shield like the one Mordo had used solid around his wrists - stopped mid-move and turned to look at them. The entire class followed, all two dozen trainees, some in street clothes, others in the same sort of Robin Hood-slash-Way of the Warrior outfits Mordo favoured.

“Was it something I said?”

Okoye elbowed him sharply. “Master Minoru,” she said - and turned to the woman at their side. “I apologise for my error.”

Wait, wh- oh. _Oh._ Because the eyes of the teacher were on the woman, and so were the eyes of every trainee.

Well, all right. Mordo hadn’t said, and they hadn’t clocked that ‘Master’ was a gender neutral title, fine.

“And yet you are my associates?” The woman said archly. She flipped her long braid back over her shoulder and nodded at the teacher. “Please, continue.” She led them through the training room and into what was probably a back office, except that it had a view of the fork in the streets outside, which…

Wait. _Aren’t we facing the wrong way for that?_ Shouldn’t they be facing the back of the building behind this one?

Tony glanced at Okoye, who was also looking a little discomforted at the view from the window. _As long as it’s not just me._

“Perhaps we should clarify. We have come into contact with an associate of yours, and he has advised us to contact you.”

“Ah,” Master Minoru said, settling down behind an ornate desk. “Please, sit.”

Those chairs… had not been there a moment ago.

They sat.

“An associate of mine,” Master Minoru prompted gently.

Okoye glanced at Tony, who shrugged minutely. “Karl Mordo,” she said.

There was a flicker across Minoru’s face at that. “Mordo.”

“Yes.”

“He hasn’t exactly endeared himself to us,” Tony broke in. “And he’s using you as his get-out-of-jail-free card. Said you’d vouch for him.”

“I see.” Minoru looked thoughtful, leaning back in her chair. Then, “well, I do apologise for wasting your time.”

 _Damn it._ “So - you can’t vouch for him?” Tony asked warily. Okoye tensed beside him. “Or you won’t?”

“I rather think if you are desperate enough to come to Hong Kong from - Wakanda, is it?” She waved a hand apologetically at Okoye, who was still in her Dora uniform. “Yes - if you are desperate enough to come to Hong Kong to simply ask for a reference, you have acknowledged that you need his expertise.” Her smile twisted. “Mordo is… very capable. We do not agree on many things, but he will not steer you wrong when it counts.”

“And the wasted portion of the trip?” Okoye asked softly. Her hand was clenched on her knee.

Minoru shrugged. “He will not give you a choice.” She waved a hand, and a portal formed by the side of the desk: the airport, where the cloaked quinjet had landed discreetly, hidden by the noise and flurry of the other traffic. The jet itself could not be seen, still under cloak, but there was a figure sat on some nearby crates, waiting patiently. He was fiddling with what looked to be handcuffs but were in fact the bracelets, interlocked.

The suit’s face-plate slammed down as Tony jumped to his feet. _Steve._ Mordo was by the crates, and they’d been away less than an hour. But the bracelets were off. The bracelets were _off_ , and he could have gone to Jabariland and back again easily in that time, taken Steve and -

“After you,” Master Minoru said with a smile, and waved them both through the portal.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okoye says, "Good evening. Do you speak English?" in Cantonese. Again, I am reliant on phrasebooks so if I got it wrong, please let me know. The [Lui Seng Chun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lui_Seng_Chun) building was the facade for the Hong Kong sanctum. [Master Minoru](http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Master_Minoru) is the Master of the Hong Kong Sanctum and was killed and then un-killed in Doctor Strange. 
> 
> Mordo... well, Mordo spends the Doctor Strange film being a hero, and then decides that he opposes the Masters on moral reasons and breaks with them to go off and kill magic users because he views them as parasites. So he's not a fan of Wanda. He is, however, very clear on his position that if something like Dormammu were to threaten reality, he'd fight to protect it (because he's a bad guy, but not that type of bad guy, if you follow me.) 
> 
> On the whole oversight/decision-making issues... Tony is still not in a great place re: the Accords. He believes in oversight, dammit, and he believes that being held accountable is the right thing to do. (And I agree to be honest - I'm a humanitarian aid worker and I'm used to working under stringent standards and frankly if you have access to vulnerable people you should be held accountable because people are awful and without accountability there is abuse.) 
> 
> But the flaw in Tony's reasoning (and what Steve is fixating on) is that he believes he would always be able to trust the morality and ethical integrity of those making those decisions, at least more than he trusts his own. Whereas Mordo is saying that the most learned of the sorcerers would not only agree with him, but that he could have gathered them all up in an army and turned up that way. So, that should have been the end of it, right? The experts, who understand all the stakes, who are willing to make that call, say that Tony has to hand Steve over, and... well, Tony knows himself enough to wonder whether he'd do so, or whether he'd take one look at that unanimous vote and say, _fuck it_ , and grab the kid and run. 
> 
> Because it's one thing to have those in charge make a call that you disagree with, but you can live with. It's another to have that call be a nuke dropped on NYC, or a sacrifice of a child, or something equally morally abhorrent. And maybe that morally abhorrent choice is the right one (and I definitely had thoughts re: Cabin the Woods here, where I spent the entire ending yelling "Are you kidding me???" at the screen). (See also Buffy's admirable and yet entirely ridiculous choice to protect Dawn when the world was ending - it's entirely understandable. And if Giles had hit her over the head and then wrung Dawn's neck, I'd understand _him_ as well.)
> 
> The interesting thing for me is that I can just as easily read Tony - during IM2 - being against external oversight, and Steve - in TFA - being pro accountability. Their experiences have shifted them away from those positions, but honestly, the interesting thing for me is that they could have come down on it either way, especially as we don't have mutant registration in the MCU. Once you throw in something that is sufficiently muddy, both positions start sliding again.
> 
> tl;dr - Mordo's willing to make the call to do unspeakable acts in the name of protecting reality, turns out the rest of the sorcerers, supreme or otherwise, are on the same page (at least according to him), Tony's wondering what the use of oversight is if the people in the room make a morally abhorrent choice to protect the world (and wasn't this what he was trying to get away from when he shut down the weapons division and limited it to his direct control), and yes, all this has done is muddy the waters that extra little bit re: the whole Accords issue that we'll pick up again a bit later on. 
> 
> Comments are, as always, love.


	21. Chapter 21

Mordo had his hands up almost before Tony was through the portal, Okoye and Master Minoru a split-second behind. “Peace, Stark. I do not wish to fight you.” He had an odd look to him, his shoulders slumped and tension in the line of his body, as if he did not believe his own words - or that he knew them to be futile.

“Somehow I doubt that.” Tony grabbed a handful of Mordo’s tunic in his left hand, lifting him bodily, the repulsor in his right hand at full power inches from Mordo’s face. Wanda wouldn’t have let this guy go; hell, _none_ of them would have. That much, he was certain of. And Mordo was right here, therefore, therefore… “ _What did you do?_ ” Surely Mordo wouldn’t have been stupid enough to injure them and then attempt to make peace? But, then, they’d thought him contained, and look how _that_ had turned out. Had he been able to get away this entire time, or had there been an opportunity while Tony and Okoye were away?

“I did nothing.” He reached up and wrapped both hands around the gauntlet. “Let go of me.” When Tony did not, his expression hardened, the familiar golden spark of his magic flickering around his wrists. “I did not harm any of them. I could have, and I did not. Let _go_.”

After a moment, Tony dropped him to the ground, disgusted. He kept the repulsor trained on Mordo’s face as Okoye stepped forward and grabbed the bracelets, hesitating. Was it even worth putting them on him? Master Minoru stood to one side, seemingly not inclined to intervene one way or the other. They had to check on the others, they had to make sure that no one was hurt. They had to - “FRIDAY, check in with Vision.”

Vision connected almost immediately. “Is something wrong?”

“How’s Steve?” Tony asked, not looking away from Mordo.

“He’s fine.” Was it Tony’s imagination, or did Vision sound a little… off? “When will you be back?”

“There has been a complication.” Tony looked at Mordo, who seemed a trifle nonplussed by Vision’s response. “Vis? How’s Steve?”

There was a short pause. “He is… distressed. Natasha is with him.”

_Distressed._ That could cover any number of sins, especially with someone who had already been through so much. “What happened? Is he hurt?” _Was it Mordo?_

And yet Mordo was still watching him with that same patient look…

“He is not physically injured,” Vis murmured, his voice guarded. “There has been another attack, we are not sure where, precisely. The portal connection seemed to affect the child this time more than previously, we are not sure why. He is unharmed, but…” A small, strange hesitation. “If you are back soon, that would be… beneficial for him.”

“As I said,” Mordo said quietly. He held up his hands to Okoye, as if offering them up for the bracelets. “I did not harm anyone. Your colleagues are merely… sleeping.”

_Not physically injured doesn’t mean he’s not hurt._ It didn’t mean Mordo doesn’t have the same powers as Wanda, or Loki. They only had conjecture that Mordo wasn’t somehow playing a double-game, trying to work behind their back and back up Umar. And if the bastard had somehow hurt Steve, despite everything…

Tony could do absolutely nothing about it, out here. “I’ll call you back.” He disconnected the call and snapped up the faceplate, squinting in the bright artificial light of the airport. “So, if we put the cuffs back on you, you’ll just take them off again, is what you’re saying. And that’s supposed to build bridges of trust and understanding?” And that was assuming he took Mordo’s new-found goodwill on trust; God only knew what he’d done to the others. _Sleeping, sure._ He could just imagine how well Barton, Barnes and Wanda would have taken someone messing with their heads.

“I strongly suspect it is meant to demonstrate that he is choosing to cooperate with you, rather than being compelled to,” Master Minoru said, inclining her head gracefully. She stepped around Okoye, smiling at Mordo, a hand stretched out to rest on his chest. “My dear, you have not been in touch.”

“I have been busy,” Mordo said, his eyes flickering between Minoru and Okoye and then - finally - coming to rest on Tony. “Mr Stark, I did not harm your friends. You may wake them now, if you like. I merely wished to demonstrate that this charade is pointless. I am not working with you under duress, but because we need to cooperate.” He half-turned, Minoru turning with him, her hand still on his chest. “We could just -” He stopped, and looked down. “Wait, what are you -”

“My dear,” Minoru said mildly, her voice soft, “you have _not_ kept in touch. And yet you bring strangers here, to the Sanctum. Strangers who fear you, who put chains on you. Now why would that be?” The strange glowing tendrils that Mordo had used to form his shields also seemed to be Minoru’s chosen weapon, twisting out from her outstretched hand, around Mordo’s chest. “What did you do, my dear, to make these people so frightened?”

Mordo was staring at her, his eyes wide. Whatever impatient irritation had been in his expression seemed to have melted away entirely as he stared at Minoru.

He was frightened of her, Tony realised with a jolt. Whoever she was, she was strong, and Mordo was no longer as assured of her goodwill as he had been a few moments ago. _FRIDAY,_ he subvocalised, _I might need a quick get-away - and full power to the jet._ He made eye-contact with Okoye, who had similarly gone absolutely still, her hand on her weapon.

“You would take their word over mine? We trained together, we _fought_ together -”

“Yes,” Minoru said, her voice honeyed. “Yes, we did, against Kaecilius. With whom we also trained together, and fought together. It seems you cannot trust anyone, these days.”

When she smiled, it rather reminded Tony of a shark scenting prey. He wondered, suddenly, if she was as young as she appeared, or whether that, too, was another feint.

Okoye raised an eyebrow at him, then nodded.

_Really? Well, OK, General, but let’s hope you’re a good judge of character._ “Not to interrupt a family reunion,” he interposed, “but maybe we could check that my people are all still intact before you get into it.” _And get everyone a nice safe distance away if you both decide to go nuclear._

Minoru turned to look at him, displeased. “Intact?”

Tony bared his teeth at Mordo. “Lucy, looks like you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do.” He stepped around them, visibly disregarding them both, and let himself into the still-cloaked jet.

Okoye touched his shoulder before he could step in. “Be careful,” she warned. “We do not know what he may have done.” She looked back over her shoulder, at where Minoru and Mordo were arguing, golden tendrils still wrapped around Mordo’s torso. “I will stay with them.”

Tony looked at Minoru’s small figure, calculating. She _looked_ human; but then, appearances had been rather deceiving in the past. “Yeah.” _Rather you than me,_ he thought, but did not say. He turned back to the jet, and to the first body lying just inside the door. Wanda - she must have tried to prevent Mordo from leaving the jet, he thought. She looked to be physically unhurt, but he didn’t dare shake her in case she had been injured, and she did not respond to a sharp pinch. Her eyes were closed in sleep, her hair in disarray beneath her as she sprawled on the cold metal floor. Tony confirmed she was still breathing and then moved further inside.

Barnes lay crumpled in the walkway, clearly having jumped out of his seat but managed no farther. His metal arm, black metal gleaming, was outstretched, his flesh arm folded awkwardly beneath his twisted body. He, too, was breathing.

At the pilot’s console, Barton was slumped forward, his body tense, his eyes moving rapidly beneath his closed eyelids. _R.E.M. sleep? While he’s unconscious?_ Not something that Tony had encountered before. Unless he wasn’t just conscious, of course. _What the hell did Mordo do to them?_

He powered up the jet as silently as he could, letting FRIDAY take control of the autopilot. “FRI, we may need a quick getaway, get us set up, please.”

He left her to it and stepped back outside, to where Minoru and Mordo were still arguing.

“Umar is active again,” Mordo rasped, trying without much success to pull free of Minoru’s grasp. “You know what she will do if she is allowed to access - let _go_ of me -” Minoru did just that, Mordo almost falling backwards in his eagerness to put some distance between them. He stopped three paces away, panting, a hand against his chest. “That was unnecessary.”

“I disagree. I needed to be sure.” Minoru looked at Okoye. “Do you still wish for me to vouch for him?”

“Yes,” Okoye said, expressionless. She might as well have been carved from stone.

Minoru nodded. “Then consider him vouched for. I know of this threat, and we have been considering our response to it. We shall need to coordinate on this, once we have our method of entry.”

_Steve._ It had to be Steve. Why else would Mordo be going through this whole ridiculous charade? Just to track Umar? No, that made no sense. There had to be more to it than that. Steve had figured out the pattern - and there _had been_ a pattern, enough for there to be a vaguely predictable map drawn up - and if this guy had Harry Potter powers at his disposal, he’d have been able to track her down a lot more easily. And he hadn’t. He hadn’t even taken a step in her direction, heading straight for Steve instead. “What does a ‘method of entry’ mean, exactly? A weapon?”

The Master wrinkled her nose, as if he had said something offensive. “No. We do not use weapons in the same way as you do; in this instance, they would merely compound the damage already done. A method of entry would be a way for us to undo what has been done. Ordinarily, we would lock away the attack into another dimension, so that there is no damage here, but that cannot contain Umar. This dimension is as alien to her as any other, and so she would merely continue in her attempts wherever we put her. No, it is clear that a fixed point would be our best option, if it exists. If not, we can -” She stopped, her eyes flickering between Okoye and Tony. “There is a problem?”

“There is such a fixed point,” Mordo said from behind her, expressionless. “It is a person, now in his child state. He was caught in the flux from one of the portals several weeks ago. He has been in their care since then.”

“Ah.” That seemed to clarify several points for Minoru. Something perilously close to grief flickered across her face for a moment. “I understand now. The ‘Steve’ whose welfare you needed to reassure yourselves of, earlier.” She looked back at Tony, inclining her head thoughtfully as she stared up at him. “Very well. When the time is right, we shall… discuss it.”

_Yeah, no._ “If you think I’m letting you anywhere near him -”

“Oh, no,” Minoru held up a hand. “No, you misunderstand. I must remain here, I cannot accompany you. But - you will bring him to me, I think. When you understand.” She looked at Mordo for a moment before her gaze dropped. “The loss of life is regrettable, and you have my sympathies, and apologies, for your loss. But I see now why it was inevitable.” That same expression flickered across her face again: black, profound grief, like a wound lanced open to let the infection spill out. “It is always difficult, when it is a child.”

The implications of that hit Tony somewhere south of his sternum, all his breath rushing out in a single gasp.

“Perhaps we should wake the others,” Okoye broke in gently, glancing between Minoru and Tony. “We have a long journey back.” At Minoru’s nod, she led both her and Mordo towards the quinjet, looking at Tony over her shoulder then steering both the magic-users away.

Tony stayed where he was, knees locked inside the armoured shell of the suit, hoping that the pain in his chest wasn’t a heart attack.

*

Barton, predictably, wanted to put Mordo’s head on backwards the moment Minoru woke him up. “You try that _one more time_ ,” he said, shouldering his way into Mordo’s personal space, crowding him back against the wall of the quinjet, “just _once,_ just one fucking _foot_ out of line, and I swear to God we’re gonna find out if keelhauling is possible on a plane. You get me?”

Mordo simply nodded.

Barnes, for his part, seemed more concerned with checking on Tony, for some strange reason. “Stark. Are you injured?” He asked, almost brusque, his gaze flickering over the exposed parts of Tony. He did not reach out or touch Tony, but he was standing too close. “Is Steve?”

He didn’t want Barnes touching him. He didn’t want Barnes that close, as if he could _smell_ Tony’s discomfort. “Vision checked in, everyone is apparently OK. There’s been another attack, though, so - well, you get the idea.” He looked down at where Wanda was still sat on the ground slowly rubbing the back of her head. “Wanda, you alright? You didn’t hit your head or - or anything?” The pain in his chest hadn’t eased, tight as a vice around his ribcage. He wanted - he didn’t know what. He wanted to call Vis and talk to Steve; he wanted to get back there and check on Steve himself; he wanted -

\- he wanted Steve back, _his_ Steve, and for a moment he wasn’t sure whether he meant the child or the man, but in either case he didn’t have him, he _couldn’t_ have him -

She shook her head. “No, I am fine. Just a headache.” She looked up at Mordo with venom in her eyes. “Is this supposed to be your ‘good side’?” It sounded as though she were quoting something.

Mordo - was that _embarrassment_? “You are unhurt,” he said, and he sounded angry. “I could have - but I did not.”

“Yes.” She climbed slowly to her feet, accepting Okoye’s offer of a hand up. “You try that again, and I will gut you.” She glanced across at Minoru. “Both of you.” She said it casually.

“OK,” Tony said, too loudly, trying to be heard over the roar in his ears, “now that everyone is friends again, can we please get underway, I have a small child to collect from his babysitter.” He dipped his head in acknowledgement to Minoru. “Master Minoru, many thanks for waking our sleeping beauties, if your buddy tries it again we will definitely come back to you after taking his head off clean at the shoulders. D’you have a card? Of course you don’t, you’re a wizard, wizards don’t have cards - ah.” He looked down at the card, then back up at Minoru’s smirk. “OK, well, that’s - Outlook, really? That’s who you’ve gone with? No, no judgement -”

Minoru stepped forward and wrapped her arm around his shoulders, pushing up on her tiptoes so she could reach him with the suit still on. “It will hear you, when you speak,” she murmured in his ear. “When you need me, call.” She stepped back. “Be safe, Mr Stark. You, and your… child.” She looked across at Mordo. “My dear. Let us remain friends, at least for a while longer.” She extended one hand, and waited until Mordo bowed over it formally, looking as if he had swallowed a lemon.

He left them to it, the two vipers, and stomped back to the pilot’s console, easing himself into the co-pilot’s seat. “FRI,” he murmured, pulling the faceplate down and tuning out everyone else, “call Steve.”

*

Steve was fine. Steve was _great_! Steve was -

Steve was a really lousy liar, Tony had no idea how the fuck he’d grown up to be so good at obfuscation when he’d had so little to work with.

The kid stared at him with enormous eyes and a trembling lower lip, clearly having cried himself to sleep more than a couple of times if the state of his blotchy red face was any indication. He had jam smeared on his chin and in his hair, and was wearing the pyjamas Tony had left him in when they’d departed Wakanda. Tony had a horrible feeling that he had stayed in them all day. There was a shrillness to his voice that rang horribly familiar - _are you a bad guy?_ \- when a small, cold child had waved a knife at him ineffectually in a vain attempt to defend himself against the indefensible.

“I’m gonna be back in a few hours,” he promised the little boy, feeling his heart clench. “I’ll be there before you wake up in the morning, I promise. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when things got scary for you today. Can you tell me about it?”

Steve seemed to think long and hard about this before shaking his head.

_Great._ “OK, that’s… that’s fine. You don’t have to, that’s fine. It’s OK to not want to talk about scary things.” God knew, he hadn’t been big on sharing when he’d been this age.

“Oh, I do want to,” Steve said, his eyes wide, his words coming in a torrent, as if he couldn’t - quite - keep them all back. “I really tried, I swear I did, I tried really hard! But I _can’t._ ” He looked back at the closed door behind him - Vision having closed it behind him with pantomimed emphasis - and then back at the screen. “Mr Vision was with me when it happened, and I remember bits of what happened, but not all of it,” he said. He’d shifted so he was too close to the screen, cutting off the top of his head and giving Tony a view of his neck and ears and not much else. “I think Mr Vision was scared, because he went away and didn’t come back again. Miss Natasha is watching me now.” He scooted back down so only his eyes showed, filling the entire screen. “But I do remember, bits of it, I told him all I could.” He seemed to be pleading with Tony to understand that he had done his best, that he had pulled together all the recollections he had of something terrifying; something _monstrous._

“What,” Tony asked slowly, dread rising, “is it that you remember, exactly?”

*

The flight back took approximately five hours, if you went by Barton’s chronometer, or eighteen days, if you went by Tony’s measure of subjective time. “Come _on_ , I could swim faster than this!” Tony muttered for the upteenth time.

“Feel free to try,” Barton sniped. “The moment you build me a faster plane, I will fly it, but until then, _sit down_.” He glanced across at Tony, then back over his shoulder at Mordo. “Did he do something, or…” He left the question dangling.

“No,” Tony said. “No, it wasn’t him.” He’d kept the suit on but had opened up the chest plate, rubbing at the ache in his chest, from the tight knot beneath the sternum up to the lump in his throat, a numb line radiating pain across his ribcage.

_“What is it that you remember, exactly?”_ He’d asked Steve, half-dreading the child’s answer. _Someone hurt me,_ he’d been expecting, or _I saw a horrible thing._ Or even, _the bad lady tried to kill me._ He hadn’t been sleeping properly - it was all either too much or too little - and he’d been clinging to Tony since Ossetia. His play had been too quiet, too fragile. His appetite had been gone, and he’d been listless for days. _I’m OK,_ he’d said when offered the chance to run about. And he’d held on to Tony as if afraid that he, too, would disappear.

_D’you promise? If I get lost, you’ll come find me?_

No, Tony had no illusions about Steve’s mental health. He’d known exactly what to expect if Steve was remembering things disturbing enough to scare away Vision.

But instead, instead…

Steve had taken a deep breath, a look of intense concentration on his face, his small chest expanding as he tried to make his voice as low and as deep as possible. _“Tell Tony I’m sorry,”_ he’d said in his little boy’s voice. _“I never meant for things to turn out this way.”_ He’d shrugged, slumping back into his normal posture and speaking voice. _“I don’t remember the rest. Just that he was very sad, and very tired. And it hurt,”_ he’d pressed a small hand to his chest, _“here.”_

“Tony?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, his gaze fixed on the burning blue of the sky outside. He could feel Barton’s eyes on him. “Steve’s OK. He just had a bit of a nightmare. You know what kids are like.” His hands clenched and unclenched on the armrests.

“Yeah,” Barton said slowly, his expression troubled. “I know what kids are like.” He started to say something else, then seemed to think better of it, lapsing into silence.

The Steve in Tony’s mind’s eye had both hands up on the screen, trying to position it so that he could see properly. He’d managed to climb up on the table, unsettling the pebble and the screen, and was now trying to fix it with all the grace and efficiency of a distressed child.

Tony had tried to settle him down, he honestly had. He’d told him it was OK, and he’d told him that everything was going to be fine. He’d told him that it had just been a bad dream - for all that it had been during the day, with Steve wide awake - and as he'd spoken, he’d run through all the options in his mind, frantically, trying to gauge the threat at the same time as he’d soothed the child. It had to have been the mind stone, that was the only explanation. They knew that Steve was connected to the portal, and that the connection had re-established every time it was open. They knew that Mordo wanted access to Steve as something more than just a way to find Umar. And Steve had not been around Vision before, he hadn’t been anywhere near the mind stone while the portal was open. No, that was the only thing that fit all the facts. The mind stone, plus the portal…. _“Steve, where did Vision go?”_

_“He went flying,”_ Steve had explained. _“He said he had to be elsewhere, in case something happened, and the scary man came back.”_

_“The scary man - he’s not going to hurt you, Steve,”_ Tony had tried to explain, to reassure. _“He’s right here with me, and he promises he’s not going to hurt any more people. He was just … confused. That’s all. He's not going to hurt you again.”_

_“I know that!”_ Steve had said indignantly. _“I meant the_ other _scary man, the one in my head.”_ And he'd rubbed his chest again, his small hand clenched on the fabric of his pyjamas as he'd sniffled, his eyes huge and watery.  _"... when... when are you gonna be home?"_

“Tony?”

“Leave it, Barton,” Tony said wearily, slumping in the seat. “Just leave it, for fuck’s sake.”

_“Tell Tony I’m sorry,”_ Steve had said, his eyes filling the screen, blue and endless, the wrong (the right?) Steve peering out from behind a veil of tears and pain.

Tony stared blindly at the last flickers of sunlight as they rose above the clouds, his vision blurring into soft focus.

_I don’t want to feel like this anymore,_ Steve said, his voice heavy with grief, and the vice around Tony's chest tightened another notch.

He closed his eyes, breathing out slowly.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the longer-than-usual gap between parts. I needed to figure out a few plot points before I could continue and knew where I needed to get to, but not quite how to get there. We're back on track now.
> 
> Tony references a catch-phrase from the 50s screwball comedy TV series _I Love Lucy_. 
> 
> And yes, that was adult!Steve being ever so briefly accessed by the conjunction of proximity to the mind stone as well as the portal opening. Anyone placing any bets on how well that's received, given everything?
> 
> Comments make me indescribably happy.


	22. Chapter 22

The flight back was seemingly endless, although Tony could not have recounted how he spent a minute of his time, merely that it had dragged through him in pained increments. He had sharp shooting pains up both arms by the time they landed, as if by clenching his fists sufficiently hard he could pause time and keep Steve safe until his return. Steve was hurt. Steve was _hurt_ , and he was _scared_ , and Tony wasn’t there, he was half a world away while both versions of Steve suffered.

"You're gonna pull something," Barton murmured at him around the time they rounded the cost of Somalia and headed south. "Tony, seriously, unclench before you shit yourself."

"How the hell is unclenching supposed to prevent me shitting myself? Seriously, Legolas, your metaphors could do with some work," Tony snapped. He glared at Barton out of the corner of his eye. "Would you be relaxed if it was Cooper? If he was alone, and scared, and you could do nothing about it?" _Would you be relaxed if one of yours was in danger?_ But maybe Barton would be. Maybe it got easier, this feeling, and the vice around Tony’s chest would slowly start to loosen. Surely it would; surely, as Steve grew up - as Steve _left_ \- it would ease, and things would go back to normal.

(But the thought itself seemed to hurt, somehow, and Tony raised a hand to rub at his sternum, at the ache there.)

Barton shrugged, his eyes on the viewscreen. For all his advice that Tony should relax, he didn’t look especially laid-back himself. His jaw was clenched, and the skin was tight around his eyes. _Physician, heal thyself,_ Tony thought, and fought the urge to reach out. (Barton, he was sure, wouldn’t want his weakness to be seen by others.)

"If it was one of mine, I'd be climbing the fucking walls, sure. But Laura would tell me what I'm telling you - you're of no fucking use to him this wound up. You'll only scare him even more. Get your head on straight before you see him." Barton glanced up, meeting Tony's eyes, managing a small smile. "I know it's hard. But you spoke to him, he's not in danger at the moment. So figure out what you're gonna say to him, because running in there like this will just make it worse."

Tony looked away. _It's easy for you to say, you've done this before!_ But no, that made no sense. Tony wasn't doing 'this', whatever 'this' was. No, it was just... it was just…

(Surely it would get easier once - )

Fuck it. He was worried. It wasn't - quite - the sort of worry that had Happy sending him frequent updates on the spider-kid; it wasn't even the sort of worry that had led him to get a tracker on Pepper, and Happy, and Rhodey (and now Steve). It was different, wasn't it? The Peter thing was pretty close, sure, but Peter... he had his aunt, and Happy was watching out for him, and the suit would keep him out of trouble. Peter would be fine, and the best thing Tony could do for him was to keep his distance. (No matter how much he might want to just check on the suit’s location.)

It wasn't the same thing when it came to Steve, who was heavier than he looked but was still small enough to fit in Tony's arms and slump into sleep, limbs completely askew in a perfect display of trust. Steve, who had no-one, who was Tony's... something. Who was _Tony's_.

(For a day, a week, maybe just an hour more. For however long it was, he was _Tony’s_.)

He forced himself to unclench his fists and breathe out slowly. It wasn't bad advice, per se. He looked back at Barton, at the tense line of his shoulders and the careful way his hands cradled the controls. He remembered the frantic movement of Barton’s eyes when he’d been under Mordo’s spell; wondered just how much it had cost Barton to put all his worry and panic and pain to one side and wrap his arms around his kids and smile as if he meant it.

He should have said something to Barton about that at the time. Hell, Fury should have, or Steve, or… well, _someone_. But if wishes were horses, and they were here now.

He cleared his throat to capture Barton’s attention, managing an insouciant smile and a raised eyebrow. "So, to be clear, in this scenario, I'm you, and you're my wife?"

Really, he had no one to blame for the resulting smack but himself.

*

Okoye and Barnes set off to meet with T’Challa upon arrival. “He will consider what must be done,” Okoye said. “It is late, and there is nothing to be done right now. We shall talk more in the morning. Rest while you can.”

Rest, right. Because things were so _restful_ these days. Tony scrubbed a hand through his hair, sighing.

He left Mordo with Wanda and M’Baku - whose shoulders seemed to have grown an extra few inches in size from sheer rage at Mordo’s audacity - and went back to their (secure, warded, _guarded_ ) rooms, Barton at his heels. “You really don’t need to follow me around everywhere,” he said to Barton, a little more mildly than he had intended. “Seriously, I'm fine.” _And you should probably call your wife and kids. Or sleep. Or drink. Something._

Barton just shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

 _Well._ Tony looked at him out of the corner of his eye. Barton was still pale and washed out, and there was a thin sheen of sweat along Barton’s hairline. _Is this a hint for me to ask?_ Maybe Barton was sticking around because he wanted to check that Steve was OK. Maybe he wanted to talk to Tony. Or maybe he just needed someone he didn’t need to smile for, just for a little while longer, before he went to his room and called his kids. _Do I dare ask?_ He thought about it and decided that he didn’t quite have the bandwidth to deal with it at the moment. If Barton wanted to talk, he’d have to bring it up himself. And besides...

Natasha answered the door. “You’re early.”

“Good tailwind,” he said, his eyes on the closed bedroom door. “Katniss, you know where the coffee is, help yourself.” He waved a hand in the vague direction of the coffee pot. Barton could caffeinate, or not, as he pleased; with Romanoff available, he’d probably be more willing to open up, anyway. Actually, come to think of it, that's probably why he’d followed Tony in the first place, old habits dying hard. “How’s Steve?” _What happened?_

She did not pretend to misunderstand. “There is a recording for you to review. He’s asleep for the moment.” Her eyes flickered between Barton and Tony. “He’ll be pleased to see you. He was a little… stressed.”

“...Yeah.” Well, at least there was a recording of what had gone down. _God bless M’Baku’s paranoid little heart._ And his omnipresent surveillance of all threats, which extended to anyone presumably not in his immediate family. (And even that was suspect; Tony wasn’t entirely sure what his relationship with T’Challa was, but it was certainly… complicated.) 

_I really need to get a subdermal tracker on the kid; having it attached to a removable item is just asking for trouble._

Hopefully they’d have some useful data from the recording, and whatever readings Shuri and Jane Foster would have gathered. _God, I really need to have a bit more time with them; doing this via conference call really doesn’t work._ Certainly not when Tony was stuck halfway around the world and couldn’t poke at their tech with anything more substantial than a hologrammatic digit. Well, that was something to think on, certainly; with Mordo no longer intent on skewering Steve, there wasn’t a particular reason for them to be holed up in Jabariland. Tony could just pick up the kid, and - “Gimme a sec.”

She held up her teacup in a mock-salute and settled back at the table, Barton sliding into the empty seat beside her. “Take your time.”

As if it was that easy.

Tony left the suit in the main room and padded to Steve’s bedroom in his socked feet, closing the door gently.

For a moment, he stayed perfectly still. Everything was exactly as he had left it when setting off earlier. The toys were all tidied away - that’s assuming that Steve had actually played with them - and his artwork of the previous day had been carefully added to the walls, joining a variety of unlikely-patterned animals and a great many superheroes. Steve’s Kevlar-lined winter jacket was over the arm of the chair beside the bed, and someone had folded his jeans and T-shirt neatly on top of the dresser. The red Iron Man sneakers - complete with tracker - were by the side of the bed, where they could be easily put on. The monitoring pebble was on the bedside table, alongside the panic button that would summon the guards.

Steve was asleep. The nightlight on the bedside table cast a faint glow over his sleeping face, blotchy and red and half-hidden beneath the bedding. He had one arm resting on top of the covers, enough for Tony to see that he was wearing one of Tony’s T-shirts, rather than his own pyjama top.

That was a bit surprising. Clearly someone had managed to get him changed out of the grotty pajamas he’d had on the call with Tony, and had given him a bath. But why was he wearing Tony’s T-shirt? He had plenty of other pajamas. Had Steve asked for it, or had one of the others offered? It didn’t seem like the sort of thing that either Vision or Natasha would have known to do. (Tony’s mom had done that for him when he wouldn’t quieten down. _You’d scream and scream until I wrapped you in my sweater. I think the smell soothed you._ He’d found it funny. _So what you’re saying is that I was a stupid baby._ But - _It wasn’t stupid, my sweetheart. All children want to be held._ )

Tony carefully moved the winter coat to the dresser and sat down in the chair beside the bed, watching the child sleep. _You don’t look anything like him when you’re asleep._ Not with his eyes closed, and his expression so typically childlike, no. Not when he was wrapped up in Tony’s worn T-shirt, and bundled so tightly in his bedclothes it was clear his sleep had been disrupted. He was so _small._ Small enough to lift and carry - when Tony had the suit on - and certainly small enough to fit in Tony’s arms. And he had no one else.

 _And who would stop me, if I decide to just take you away?_ They might fight him on it, sure, but what could they really do?

 _Who will avenge my son?_ Charlie’s mother had said to him - had spat at him, sharp and accusing - and Tony had not understood then. Oh, he’d felt her pain, and he’d felt the guilt of it, but he hadn’t _understood._ Not until now. These last few weeks, these last few days. Those hours on the quinjet, his hands tight on the armrests, bartering away the scraps of his soul to whoever might be listening to keep Steve safe until he got him back.

 _I could take you away, and I could look after you, and they couldn’t stop me._ No one could. It was on him, now. It was on _him_.

(What would Tony do, if that was truly the older Steve coming back through on the recording?)

Was that why there was always someone with him, now? Why Romanoff had tried so hard to make him remember the older Steve, to think about him, to put _him_ first? 

He looked down at the sleeping child, at how his hand had crept without his volition to gentle the tangled sweaty hair and soothe away his childish terrors, and he knew the truth of it: _it’s too late, now._

It had been too late for quite some time. 

Beneath his hand, Steve stirred, making a quiet murmur of confusion. 

“Hey,” Tony whispered, terror in his voice and his heart in his throat. “Hey, kiddo. I’m back.” _I’m home._

The child turned in his sleep, blinking his way back to wakefulness and shifting under Tony’s hand. “... you’re here,” he said, soft and pleased.

Something in Tony broke at that. At having someone that pleased to see him, as if his whole world had been made better by Tony being in it. He hadn’t felt that way since -

Since -

_Shhh, it’s OK, Tony, go back to sleep. Mommy’s here, sweetheart, it’s all OK…_

“I am. I promised, didn’t I? Shhhh, go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” But Steve was already asleep, wrapped in the memory of Tony’s embrace.

*

Natasha was waiting for him when he left the room a few minutes later, Barton busy at the little kitchenette, making a fresh pot of coffee. “He’s OK?” She asked, sounding a little uncertain. “We had some trouble getting him to bed. He seemed to quieten down when M’Baku put him in your shirt, though, but we had to leave the nightlight on.” She bit her lip, uncharacteristically abashed, as if the shirt - or the concession to a child’s terror - had been some great transgressive act. (Perhaps, for her, it was.) 

“He’s asleep.” Which was probably as close to ‘OK’ as Tony was gonna get at this point in time, for both Steve and himself. He glanced across at Barton, who was very pointedly _not_ eavesdropping, and sighed. “Let’s get this over with. Legolas, hurry up with the coffee, I’m dead on my feet.”

“You certainly smell like it,” Barton muttered, but he brought the coffee over and sat back down at the table. 

Tony nudged the coffee pot in his direction. “Drink some coffee, you’re disgustingly whey-faced.” He turned to Romanoff. “Barton got mind-whammied again, FYI; if he decides to re-enact _The Shining_ you should probably thwap him over the head with something heavy.”

“Your concern for the well-being of your fellow man is truly an inspiration to us all.” Disgruntled, Barton added cream to his coffee and then put it out of Tony’s reach.

More fool him; Tony was perfectly happy to drink his coffee black. “It’s like living with a toddler.” 

“In more ways than one,” Romanoff said, sotto voce. She laid her monitoring pebble on the table and picked up her own mug of coffee, sitting back in her chair. “You sure you want to do this with us here?”

Did he want to do this with the two people who (for whatever well-meaning reasons they may have had) had done more to manipulate him over the last few weeks than anyone had done since… well, it had been a while. Maybe even as much as a year.

Tony was both 100% done with being manipulated, and strangely inured to it by now. _People lie._ It wasn’t as though he was exempting himself from that category; he’d lied plenty to Rhodey and to Pepper, both for their own good and when he couldn’t find the words to make himself understood. He’d lied to his dad compulsively; he’d lied to his teachers, to senators, to _Obie_ \- although that last was probably well-deserved, considering - and to anyone in authority. He’d lied to Steve - child Steve - almost daily, reassuring him repeatedly that everything would be OK, that if he was only patient for a little while longer, he’d be looked after and safe.

So, yeah. Romanoff and Barton had both been maneuvering him for their own ends - or for what they saw as the _team_ ’s ends - and Tony was not OK with that. Barton, he’d more or less made peace with (barring an appointment with a fist sometime in the future). But Romanoff… 

“I figure, as long as we’re being upfront about the stabbing, we can probably do it in the chest and not the back.” He met her eyes, making his expression as blank as possible. _Don’t try this again._ He had nothing else for her, for the well-meaning lies and the machinations and the way she cared so fiercely about people that (he was fairly sure) weren’t quite _real_ to her. There wasn’t a silver bullet to fixing what had gone wrong between them, and he wasn’t sure either of them would take it, even if there had been. 

He couldn’t mend fences with her the way he had with Barton. There was no earlier friendship to refer to, just more of the same: the same lies, the same mistrust, the same wariness of each other as if they were predators forced to share living space. _Not enough space in this ole town…_ occurred to him, and he fought the instinct to smile. 

No, there was no going back to a ‘before’ with Nat, because there was no ‘before’ there. But -

She’d looked after Steve. She’d made sure he was OK, she’d put him to bed. And she would have - she must have - called M’Baku when he wouldn’t quieten down, to try to find a way to reassure him. She could have left him on his own; she could have handed him over to someone else and guarded him from the outside. She could have done anything other than stay with him and try to make sure he wasn’t scared.

 _I can forgive a lot, for that._ Not for himself. Not for the sake of a friendship he’d never been entirely sure had been there. And not for her, either; not for her sake, or her peace of mind. But for Steve? For Steve asleep, dressed in Tony’s AC/DC T-shirt, wrapped in a linen burrito, his clothes carefully folded and his little sneakers within reach, the nightlight on until Tony could get home…

All he could offer her was neutrality. They weren’t friends - they never had been, probably, because they were both too good at this; Tony too good at putting up walls and Natasha too good at wearing masks - but they didn’t have to be, not for this. They could - maybe, possibly, _potentially_ \- work together. All they’d have to do, is be able to turn their back and trust that there wouldn’t be a knife in it. 

_That’s not a lot to ask, is it?_ _Detente._ A truce, of a sort, until they figured out which way the dominos would fall. 

It was maybe doable. _Maybe._ And either Natasha would take his comment in the spirit in which it was meant, or…

Slowly, she nodded. “That could work.” Her lips quirked in what could be mistaken for a smile.

Well. It was something to be getting on with, anyway. “We should probably watch this thing before Barton falls asleep on us.”

“Fuck you, I’m the paragon of watchfulness.”

“I’m frankly astounded you even know a word like ‘paragon’; was that on the _Fugitives Monthly_ ‘word of the day’?”

Barton gave him the finger and reached out his other hand, activating the pebble, effectively silencing any riposte.

The image that sprang up - Steve, pale-faced and too-quiet - instantly killed off any remnants of levity. Tony’s hands clenched on the table-top at the look in Steve’s eyes. _That’s not Steve._

But it was. _It was._

 _“Vision?”_ That was Steve’s voice, all right, but there was something wrong. There was an odd, deep timbre to it, as if an older man was trying to speak through a child’s voicebox. _“This is strange.”_ He looked up at Vision - at the camera - and blinked, as if in a daze. _“Where am I?”_

 _“What’s wrong? Are you ill, Steve?”_ Vision, off-screen, but rapidly approaching to kneel beside the child.

Steve shook his head, as if to clear it. _“No… did I dream? Am I dreaming now?”_ He looked down at himself, hesitantly plucking at the hem of the T-shirt he wore. His eyes were drawn to the sneakers with their rampant Iron Man motif, one foot edging over the other in an echo of an earlier time. _“I think I’m dreaming.”_

_“What do you mean?”_

When Steve looked up, there was nothing of the child he had been in his eyes. _“The woman, at the base. She was a magic user. Vision! You have to tell the others, you have to tell Wanda. There was something -”_ He shook his head again, frustrated, turning away in a motion eerily reminiscent of his adult self. _“I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”_

 _“Steve. You need to calm down. Are you remembering the base?”_ Vision tapped his communicator, disquiet on his face. _“Natasha, please come to the Stark quarters immediately. Something is wrong.”_

But Steve would not be placated, would not be distracted. _“I shouldn’t have gone alone,”_ he muttered, scrubbing a hand through his hair. _“I was too late, I was too slow, and now this has happened…”_ He laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. _“He always did say my pig-headedness would be the death of me. Guess I had to prove him wrong, even in that.”_ He looked back at Vision, his gaze sharpening. He reached out a hand towards Vision’s forehead, where the Mind Stone glowed with the proximity; Vision clapped his hand on it and stepped backwards, panic on his face. _“You have to tell him, Vision. I promised him I’d always be there if he needed me, and…”_ He held out his arms, a peninent baring his breast for a death-blow. _“Promise me you’ll tell Tony I’m sorry. I never meant for things to turn out this way. I meant to keep my promise, and I kept the phone with me always. Promise me - promise me you’ll tell him, Vision!”_

 _“Steve, something is wrong,”_ Vision said, still keeping himself out of reach, as if he could protect the child by hovering a mere three feet away. _“This should not be possible. Can you tell me where you are, at the moment?”_

Steve looked up at him, the familiar clear blue of his eyes unwavering. _“Tell Tony I’m sorry.”_ He bit his lip and looked down. _“And Bucky,”_ he said, soft and ashamed, almost inaudible. _“Tell him… please, Vision. Tell him, I tried.”_ When he looked back up, his eyes were full of tears. _“I tried.”_ He blinked again, and suddenly the shamed look had drained from the child’s face, leaving only terror behind.

 _“What’s happening?”_ He whispered.

A hand landed over Tony's, squeezing gently. Tony didn't notice. 

He couldn't look away from the image where - helpless, terrified - Steve had begun to cry.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should hopefully be back to a weekly posting schedule now for the most part.
> 
> Tony wants to meet Natasha half-way, but half-way for that relationship isn't 'halfway to being friends'. It's mostly 'halfway to a clean slate', which sounds a bit weird, but Tony holds grudges so for him to be willing to let even part of that go is a big deal. We'll see how well it goes.
> 
> Barton isn't having the best reaction to having his mind messed with - again.
> 
> Steve is... not good.
> 
> Comments are always appreciated.


	23. Chapter 23

Sleep did not come easily. He tensed at every small noise, getting up four times in the night to check on Steve and make sure that he was OK. _This is ridiculous,_ he thought, exasperated and edging into exhausted. _He’s fine. What the hell is going to happen when he’s sacked out?_

He couldn’t quite make himself believe it. Every time he drifted off, something would startle him to wakefulness and sending him stumbling from his bed to creep into Steve’s room, as if watching the rise and fall of his chest could somehow provide proof positive that he was OK, that something hadn’t gone horribly wrong. _It’s not like I’d necessarily know if it had,_ he thought uneasily. Steve could be altered in any number of ways and they’d have no way of knowing until he woke up. Checking up on him was pointless.

The fifth time he jolted awake, he gave up and moved to sit in the chair next to Steve’s bed, his bedclothes gathered loosely around him and his hand on the child’s arm. Steve was still too thin, of course, and sleeping far too much. Tony had some vague idea that kids were supposed to get up early and be full of energy all the time; obviously Steve had a pre-existing condition, but surely he should have still had more energy than he exhibited. After all, he’d grow up to -

He cut off that train of thought more vehemently than he meant to. He couldn’t think about that now. It was easier to think of them as two separate people who couldn't occupy the same space; thinking about the connection between them was too disturbing. _And besides,_ a part of him reasoned, _this Steve has a completely different life._ No serum, no war, no SHIELD betrayal… no mother and no Bucky, either, so it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but at least the time displacement would be easier on a child.

Thinking of the two Steves as separate people was also neater and easier than having to think about what this all meant. After all, if there were two Steves, then he was perfectly within his rights to prioritise the rights and welfare of the child.

_Wouldn’t you do the same?_ The thought came unbidden, intended for a different recipient than the child lying quiescent on the bed. _Wouldn’t you want to keep him safe?_ Even after everything that had gone wrong between them, wouldn’t Steve agree with him on this one small, self-evident truth?

He wished he could be sure of that. But even if Tony thought of the child and the man as two separate people, it didn’t look as though Steve himself agreed with that delineation. After the initial shock of finding himself in this new body, he’d certainly seemed as though he’d understood exactly what had happened to him, and how he had been altered. Or perhaps Tony was being uncharitable here, leaning towards the natural contrariness that the two of them seemed to occupy whenever they were in the same space. Maybe Steve had not thought through the implications.

_Or maybe he has. Maybe that’s why he was apologising; not because he’s not here now, but because he doesn’t think he’s coming back._

_Maybe that was him saying goodbye._

Something seemed to go cold in Tony at that.

All they had so far were some inconclusive readings and a whole lot of conjecture and hand-waving. Who the hell knew what had truly happened, and what level of awareness Steve had of his situation.

Nat seemed convinced that the older Steve was somehow ‘in there somewhere’, and that he had - however temporarily - been allowed to shine back through. Barton thought that this was bullshit, and had argued fairly cogently that Steve had not looked in the least bit altered. _He’s not compromised, he’s possessed, for fuck’s sake!_

_Possessed by his older self?_

And all Tony could think was, _it was the ghost of Christmas future._ No wonder the child had looked so terrified.

But whether the truth of it, it was obvious that the Mind Stone was the key to it. It was fairly clear that it had allowed the temporary connection between Steve’s two states - Vision’s proximity being the only differing factor to the previous attacks - but that did not mean that they knew what would come next. Would it only happen if Vision was nearby; if so, what did ‘nearby’ equate to? And what if that connection wasn’t the equivalent of a conductor between two separate states, easily remedied by removing the child from Vision; what if it was a wrench turning a tap instead - small drips at first, but continuing drop by drop until there was a torrent? How would they cope with that?

They weren’t even sure if this physical state was permanent, or whether it would start to degrade or destabilise. Would Steve grow normally if left to his own devices? Everything seemed to point to his situatedness in this time, from his responsiveness to the antibiotics to his ability to ingest food and expel waste, but that wasn’t a guarantee. Mordo had called him a fixed point; they still didn’t have a clear idea of what that meant, other than he could use Steve to somehow fight Umar. Did being a ‘fixed point’ imply the permanence that Tony would have attributed to the description, or was it just Mordo’s turn of phrase?

(Or maybe whatever had happened with Vision had been an unexpected spanner in the works, and he was no longer as fixed as Mordo had assumed. Maybe now that the floodgates had opened, the adult Steve would keep returning, a little longer each time, an adult mind in a child’s body, slowly breaking under the strain.)

The truth of it was, even in the best of all worlds - where they stopped Umar, where Mordo turned out to not be a double-crossing bastard, where there was no collateral damage - they had no guarantee of what would happen to Steve.

No, there was too much at stake. Even if he focused solely on the welfare of the child, there was still too much unknown, too much being left to chance. And with the adult Steve possibly still somewhere in there - still aware, in flashes if not in perpetuity, of all that had been done to him - how could they afford to wait?

_I promised Tony,_ the child Steve had said in a man’s voice, and the echo of it wouldn’t fade from Tony’s ears.

And Tony…

Hadn’t Tony made his own promises? Hadn’t he promised Steve, again and again, that he’d do everything he could? That he’d look after him, that he’d keep him safe?

_I could take him and leave,_ he thought, staring at the sleeping face. He could take the child, and he could...

It’s not entirely selfless, that instinct. It’s not just the memory of Steve’s terror, or the echo of someone else’s voice reverberating in his chest; no, not at all. It’s also the wretched covetousness of his dreams, of the bloodied blue blanket and the uniform-clad Steve staring at him with beseeching eyes, and the lives of both in the palm of Tony’s trembling hand.

_Tony, don’t listen, you can’t do this, Tony please, I’m your friend -_

He was likely going insane. He doesn’t know why the same thought kept coming back to him, circling around and around with perfect clarity: _it’s not fair._

Only a child would think of it in terms of fairness; he should know better.

(He does. He knows fairness has nothing to do with whether Steve lives or dies; that some unseen skeletal hand could reach in and snatch the sleeping child for its own as easily as it had spared the man.)

He ran a trembling hand through his hair, watching Steve shift restlessly in his sleep.

What were his options, really? He could let things take their course, letting the child be buffeted by the various forces exerted on him. Mordo might have a way of fighting Umar, and Steve might be a weapon in that - or he might not. Wanda might figure out a way to turn Steve back if Tony let her get close enough ( _not yet, not quite yet_ , a part of his brain whispered, as if a delay of a few days could build the trust that had never existed between them). And if none of that happened, if things continued in this holding pattern, then… then…

Then Steve might still come back all on his own, with all that was unresolved lying between them. (And the child, some small part of Tony thought and clenched as if physically wounded. The child would be gone.) What would Tony do, if that happened? If he walked in one morning and found Steve Rogers lying in the child’s bed? If the child was gone, and all that had been left behind was someone who had no further use for Tony; someone who had lived a life and who had made his choices, and who regretted nothing except living?

What would Tony say, if Steve were to come back?

Would he be able to say anything at all? Or would he be looking at the child’s bed, and the abandoned sneakers on the side, the Iron Man motif rampant on each foot, a tracer tucked in beside the laces….

These are not the extent of his choices, he knows that much. He does not have to stay here, frozen in fear, waiting for the impossibility to resolve itself, for the choice to be taken out of his hands. He does not have to say here at all. Surely that much is self-evident, surely it is _understandable._

He could take the child. He could take the child, and try to find out what was happening, for good or ill. Surely even Steve couldn’t fault him for that. And besides…

( _Tony, my sweetheart. If he’s not yours, then whose is he?_ )

_What could it hurt?_

*

He met T’Challa at his rooms, ushered in by one of the Dora. _Well, it looks like M’Baku sure knows how to treat his liege-lord._ The suite of rooms wasn’t that much bigger than what had been provided for Tony and Steve, but it was much more sumptuously appointed. Clearly M’Baku did not stint when it came to providing housing - however temporary - for his king. “Your majesty. Thank you for seeing me.”

“Of course, Dr Stark.” T’Challa waved him to a chair and they sat. “What can I do for you?”

“I assume you know why I’m here.”

“Ah. I do have some inkling of it, yes. But I dislike having to guess.”

Tony looked at him sharply. T’Challa sounded genial enough, but it was hard to read him. To Tony’s inexpert eye he looked a little ruffled, as if he had dressed hurriedly, although he was wearing his formal robes rather than the Black Panther suit. Had he been asleep when Tony had requested to see him urgently? Or maybe he had been working in informal clothing he did not wish to be seen in. _Or maybe,_ Tony thought uneasily, _maybe I’m jumping the gun. Maybe he’s not on the same page, despite appearances._ Everything had seemed crystal clear when he’d been thinking it over at Steve’s bedside, but that didn’t guarantee that what had seemed obvious to him would be evident to anyone else. _That much,_ he thought bitterly, _has been made abundantly clear in the last few months._ Well, there was only one way to find out, he supposed. “It’s about Steve,” he started.

“The child, I assume. Not the man.”

“Right.” Tony folded his legs and leaned back in his seat, spreading his arms in as easy and welcoming a gesture as he could manage, given the lingering strain in his shoulders and back from spending the night slumped in a chair. “The child. You know what happened - the portal, the mind stone - when I was away?”

“I am aware, yes.” T’Challa’s face gave nothing away.

_The hard way, then._ “It distressed him,” Tony said bluntly. “He was aware of the presence of the other Steve’s mind inside his own, and it was very frightening and possibly painful for him.”

“And so the Vision has absented himself from Jabariland.”

“Yes.” Tony took a deep breath, watching T’Challa carefully. “But that’s not enough. We don’t know why it’s happening, and we can’t do anything about it here. Now that Mordo is working with us and isn’t a threat to Steve, there’s no reason to stay in Jabariland.”

“You wish to go back to Birnin Zana with him?” But T’Challa’s eyes said plainly that he knew that was not true.

“I want to take him to the US,” Tony said; a statement, not a question. He had more to say - _we don’t have a plan for dealing with Umar yet; he’s been kept indoors for pretty much the entire time we’ve had him and that’s not healthy; we’ll be closer to Shuri and Jane Foster and they’ll be able to monitor him more effectively if he’s nearby; I can’t stay here indefinitely and wait around for something to change, I have responsibilities -_ but it was all details, details. He took a deep breath. “I’m taking him back to the US with me.”

There was a long pause. “Yes,” T’Challa said finally. “I rather thought you might.” He smiled at whatever he saw in Tony’s expression. “I assume you’re not here for my permission?”

“No,” Tony admitted. If he thought that T’Challa might oppose him, he would not have come. He’d have simply taken Steve and left, if it had come to that. The child had sufficiently warm clothing to be OK on a short trip, and Tony would have had FRIDAY arrange for pick-up the moment they were outside of Wakanda’s borders. He wouldn’t have liked to do it - no point in alienating absolutely everyone with a single move - but if it had come to that… no, he didn’t need T’Challa’s permission. Steve was his responsibility. “But I could do with your support. And your sister.” If he had access to Shuri and Jane Foster - and to their lab and results - they might be able to figure out what was happening. They might be able to get ahead of it.

They might be able to save Steve.

_Which Steve?_ A sweetly poisonous voice inside Tony asked. _Which Steve are you trying to save?_

“I could really do with Shuri’s help,” Tony said, almost stumbling over his words. He looked away. “I can’t do anything here. We need to get Steve to her lab, I need to be able to confer with Shuri and Jane Foster without having to hold things up to a video screen or try to guess at what interventions we can try. I need access to that lab, and to their research.”

“Ah. Without wishing to speak on behalf of my sister, I am sure that can be arranged. It seems a sensible step, given we seem to have plateaued in our investigations.” T’Challa frowned. “I do have one question.”

“Yes?”

“What will you do, if the link between the two of them re-establishes itself?”

_Which of them gets to live?_

*

“What are you doing?” Steve asked drowsily, still half-asleep. He’d slept through the entire night and most of the morning, only stirring when Tony had gently shaken him awake. He blinked in the half-light of the room, watching Tony. “Are we leaving?”

Tony hesitated. It had seemed simple enough to explain this when he’d been thinking it over, but somehow the words had deserted him in the face of Steve’s earnest confusion. “Steve, listen. I know we’ve been moving around a lot, and I know it’s been confusing. But I need us to take one more trip, OK, buddy? I’m going to move us back to the US.”

“Back home?” Steve brightened so much it was almost painful to watch. He sat up and hugged his knees, suddenly wide awake.

“.... Steve.” Hesitantly, Tony reached out and gathered the child to him. “I would if I could. You know that, right?” _Liar,_ he thought, appalled at himself. _You fucking liar, you’re doing the opposite of that, you’re practically stealing him -_ For all of T’Challa’s sanction, for all his, _I’ll take care of the paperwork on this side,_ he knew how this would look to the others, especially to Barton and Romanoff. _And Barnes,_ he thought uneasily. _Someone will need to make sure that Barnes is under control._ “But… things are complicated. We’re not quite sure how to undo the magic on you and send you back that way. And if we do -“ He hesitated again. _Dammit, he needs to know._ “I’m not quite sure that’s the best thing to do.”

Steve’s face fell. “Why not?”

“Because… OK, you remember what happened when I was away, right?”

Steve nodded. “The scary man was in my head.” He pressed a hand to his sternum, to the memory of remembered pain.

“That’s - that’s right. Only, he’s not -” No, that wasn’t the right approach. He changed tack. “Can you tell me why he was so scary? Was it just the scariness of having someone else in there, or something else?”

Steve’s brow furrowed in thought. “Sort of. But he was also scary. He’d had lots of bad things happen, and they hurt, and they didn’t stop hurting. And then he’d also done bad things, and they didn’t stop hurting, either.” His voice dropped. “It was scary, and it _hurt_.”

_Christ. Doesn’t that just break your fucking heart._ Tony nodded as gently as he could. “I know. I know, kiddo. And I know he’s really sorry you’re hurting.” Which was… probably a safe bet. Steve’s compassion would stretch to his child self, right? “You remember me saying that you used to be bigger, and someone made you a kid again?”

Steve nodded.

“Well, it’s like this. Your older self - he’s been through some really scary stuff. And he used to be a soldier, you know, and fight the bad guys. So some of the stuff he had to do… well, that can be scary as well, especially if you’re not a soldier. I know he didn’t mean to scare you, and I know he’d want you to tell me if you were ever scared again.” _There. That sounded OK, right?_ Responsible, thoughtful, caring…

Steve was silent for a long time. “Does that mean - if I’m supposed to be him - is that why we’re not going back home? Because it’s not there anymore?”

_Oh, God._ “I’m sorry, kiddo,” he said gently. “Yeah. That’s what that means.”

The child nodded, his little fingers tight on Tony’s T-shirt. He didn’t seem surprised to hear that, and by the familiar set of his jaw, he was clearly trying his best to be stoic about it. _I shouldn’t have done this first thing, I should have made him eat breakfast first,_ Tony thought, ridiculously, as if having breakfast would somehow safeguard Steve against the pain of losing everything all over again.

He hadn’t wanted to wait until later in the day. It was nearly noon already; for all that they were flying west-wards, they’d need to get going soon unless they wanted to fly through the night. (Tony really, really didn’t want to fly through the night with a scared child, having done that once already.)

Children were supposed to be resilient, right? They could cope with change. _Yeah, change. Sure. That’s a good way to put being orphaned at seven._

He didn’t know if it was possible to preserve this version of Steve, or even if that was the right thing to do, given everything the child had gone through. But it didn’t seem any more moral to simply reset the clock and try to put Steve back, as if the last few weeks had never happened, and get the adult Steve in his place. Functionally, it would be putting Steve back where he was supposed to be, in his mother’s arms. _So why does it feel like I’d be killing him?_ Sending him back to live the same life of pain and loss and trauma, to watch his mother die anyway, and to live through the horror of war…. _isn’t it kinder,_ a small, poisonous voice inside Tony said, _to spare him from all of that?_

No, he couldn’t think that way. Things were already muddy enough without this; no, all he had to do was figure out a way to… well, fix things. Magically. Or - if he had his way - scientifically. _I hope to God you’re as brilliant as you seen, Princess. I could really do with a miracle right about now._

(He couldn’t do anything here, he knew that. They were both trapped inside, waiting for the next disaster. At least if Tony had access to something other than carefully-curated consumer tech at his disposal he could try to figure out what was affecting Steve, how the bleed between the two Steves had been effected.

And how it could be _un-_ effected.

Surely, he thought, whatever the outcome, preventing the bleed would be in Steve’s best interest. In _both_ Steves’ best interest.

Surely.)

“I’m going to take us to California,” he said instead, watching Steve’s eyes widen. Yup, he recognised _that_ name. “We’re going to stay by the beach. There are some people there who might be able to help, and I think it’ll be better for you to be back in the US.” It occurred to him, belatedly, that he hadn’t asked Steve’s input into any of this. “Would you like that?”

He watched as Steve thought it over carefully. “Am I… does this mean that I get to go back to school?”

There was so much _hope_ in that voice. As if he’d been thinking it over and over in his head, this perfect impossible ask - next to the _other_ impossibility of wanting his mother - and he almost didn’t dare believe that it was possible. That he could have this small slice of normality back.

“... yeah,” Tony said, his voice hoarse. “Yeah, Steve. Whatever you want.”

He’d figure it out. Malibu probably wouldn’t work if they needed to get to Oakland regularly, but they could stay in San Francisco. He’d been a resident of California before; he could do it again. And money could hide any multitude of sins; if T’Challa came through on his promise, between the two of them, they’d have an identity drawn up for Steve that even Ross wouldn’t be able to break through.

Tony could take him back to the US, could put Steve in school, could see Pepper and Happy, could check on Peter and Harley, could make sure that everything at SI hadn’t caught on fire while he’d been hiding in a cave (again)...

_And all it will cost,_ that same sweet poisonous voice said, _is giving up on getting Steve back._

He resolutely put that thought out of his head. _I’m not giving up. I’m being pragmatic. We can’t continue in a holding pattern; he’s a child, not a briefcase. We can’t lock him away until we’re ready to figure out what the issue is. He needs -_

He stopped in his tracks, his arm frozen around Steve’s thin shoulders. _He needs parenting._

It was a terrifying thought. _Just for a little while,_ he reasoned. _Just until we know what the situation is. He’s just lost his mother, he needs someone familiar. Just for a little while longer._

_What could it hurt?_

He cleared his throat, looking down at the towhead leaning against his shoulder. “Hey. Why don’t you get dressed and then help me pack, huh? You can help me pack up your drawings so they don’t get crumpled.”

Steve nodded and scrambled down from the bed, immediately heading for his art supplies, dwarfed in Tony’s T-shirt.

( _If he’s not yours,_ his mother’s voice said, soft and low, the bundle in her arms wriggling, _then whose is he?_ )

Tony watched him go, smiling through the pain in his chest.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *crawls in* Well, that week was certainly... hellish. *crawls away, exhausted* 
> 
> Comments are always treasured.


	24. Chapter 24

“Tony…” Pepper had a hand over her mouth, her expression simultaneously stunned and horrified. “Tony, what on earth were you thinking?”

Tony was wondering if this conversation was one he should have saved for when they were safely within US territorial waters and it was all a done deal. As it was, Steve was busy packing up his things and getting dressed, and Tony had thought, foolishly, _oh, I can get that call done in the meantime._

In his defence, he’d expected Pepper to look a little less like he’d dropped a dead mouse in her glass of wine.

Even Happy looked worried. “Boss… you know I always have your back, whatever. But are you sure?”

This was precisely the reaction that Tony was hoping he wouldn’t be confronted with. “It’s not permanent,” he said irritably, aware of just how close he was to pedantry. _Nothing’s ever permanent, isn’t that how it goes?_   “I’m just -”

“Taking him across international borders as your legal ward,” Pepper finished faintly. She still hadn’t taken her hand away from her mouth. Her eyes were very wide. “I - I don’t know where to start, Tony.”

“How about with - well, gosh, Tony, I’m glad you’re coming back to the US, it hasn’t been the same without you and Stark Industries sure does need its Head of R&D back! Sure, I’d be thrilled to help you with this little thing!”

Pepper took her hand away; the better to scowl at him, Tony thought. “Well, gosh, Tony, I’m always glad you haven’t managed to get yourself killed - though not for lack of trying on your part I assume - and I’ll of course help you, but have you lost your goddamned mind?” She dropped out of the mocking tone, her mouth twitching as she visibly willed the frown away. “I’m serious. This is such a bad idea.”

It probably was, Tony thought, but unfortunately all of his other options were even worse. He rather thought that Pepper might disagree, though. “I need to work with Shuri on this, and she’s based in Oakland.”

Pepper’s eyes narrowed. “And, what, she’s allergic to planes? Why can’t she come to you?”

Because he’d be damned if he’d sit around under T’Challa’s thumb (and Nat’s quiet, behind the scenes manipulations) and have Steve raised by committee. It was bad enough that he’d given way to them on so many occasions so far; any further surrenders on his part and he wouldn’t blame any of the others for assuming they just had to push to watch him buckle. He owed the kid more backbone than that when it came to his welfare.

Actually, now that he thought about it, he rather suspected that Shuri herself wasn’t adverse to the idea of doing this outside of her brother’s direct control (T’Challa’s blessing notwithstanding), as she hadn’t volunteered to fly back instead. Her lab had been damaged in the succession scuffle, if he’d caught T’Challa’s drift correctly, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t be able to rebuild it pretty fucking quickly if the occasion called for it. No, he’d bet good money that Shuri wouldn’t be volunteering to come back to her brother’s apron strings unless the world was actually ending. He couldn’t really blame her, either; T’Challa had charisma in spades, and intelligence wasn’t the be-all and end-all. Tony himself had easily been smarter than Rogers - and less easily, than Fury - and had still let them order him about for the better part of five years. “The lab’s not portable, and - look, I’m not just going to sit around here and wait, OK? I have to come back to the US. And I’m in charge of Steve, I can’t just abandon him - and he needs to be there in person for us to figure out what the hell is going on. This really is the best way of doing it.”

Pepper squinted at him and said nothing. Tony had the uncomfortable feeling that she knew he was pulling this out of his ass. He opened his mouth to fill the awkward silence.

“Who’s going to be with you?” Happy interrupted. “Boss, who’s going to be watching your back while you have the kid with you?” His frown deepened. “I can’t come out there, I have the spi- um, the _other_ kid to watch, and then the security to organise… So who is going to be watching your back while you walk around with a giant target strapped to it?”

_Oh, great._ Between them, Happy and Pepper had managed to hit more or less every point he’d hoped he would be able to skirt over. And this one… well, it hadn’t been a pleasant negotiation, and he was still of two minds about it. How would they react, knowing what they did? He winced. “Um…”

It took Pepper a moment to get it. “Are you _kidding me?_ Tony, what the _hell_ -”

It took Happy a little longer to get it, but then his expression also fell. He didn’t look mad, oh no. He looked _disappointed._

“Barton’ll be there, too,” Tony offered feebly, feeling obscurely like he was back in school and had been dragged to explain himself in front of a disapproving teacher. It wasn’t even his fault! He’d pointed out all the flaws in the plan: the fact that the ‘kill’ order was still out, that Tony himself didn’t trust the guy to prioritise the safety of the child over his old buddy, and - oh yeah - Barnes was still a killing machine with a MacGuyvered off-switch preventing him going on a murderous rampage. “That may be,” T’Challa had answered, serene as a fucking monk. “But my sister was the one to install this ‘off-switch’, and if you trust her enough to consult with her about the child, surely you trust her enough on this.” It had been hard to argue with that logic, although Tony had tried. But the fact of the matter was that he couldn’t be with Steve 24/7, and with Vision out of the picture, that left only three sufficiently lethal options for his babysitter-slash-bodyguard: Barnes, Nat, or Wanda. Out of those, Barnes was far and away the best option; he was strong, he was fast, and he was single-minded. If Tony could trust him to place Steve’s safety before everything else, then… well, it couldn’t hurt. And if the price for that was a couple of photostatic veils and Tony forcing himself to be civil to Bucky fucking Barnes, it was cheap at twice the price.

(Barton had volunteered to come along mostly to act as a buffer zone. It was either that, or he wanted front-row seats for when Tony and Barnes finally strangled each other.)

“Oh, well, if _Barton_ ’ll be there,” Pepper said, rolling her eyes, as if Tony was being even more ridiculous than usual.

Tony wasn’t sure whether he should be insulted on Barton’s behalf or not. He settled for shrugging a little.

She sighed. “Tony. Seriously. What’s going on?”

“I told you,” he said, his voice deliberately light. “I’m gonna move us back to the US for a bit. I’m gonna do the heavy lifting on this, Pep, I promise. All I need is a favour or two.”

And, just like that, her expression was all business. “What kind of favour?”

_And now we find out if the old adage is true, and looks truly can kill,_ Tony thought. He kept face as relaxed as possible. “I need some way to keep our mutual friend away from the kid. There’s only a couple that come to mind, and I’m gonna need help with either one.” Because the only way Tony could think of this becoming an even bigger clusterfuck than it currently was if Ross decided to stick his nose in.

He let her think it through, her brow furrowing. Happy glanced between them, but didn’t interrupt Pepper’s train of thought. “I’d prefer if we could keep him out of sight,” she said finally. “I think registering him for anything more elaborate than that will just lead to more trouble. Besides,” her eyes narrowed again, “I thought you weren’t going to do anything permanent?”

“It’s not!”

“Not if we keep him out of sight,” she agreed easily. “I assume T’Challa can provide him with papers?”

“Let’s go with yes,” Tony said, and crossed his fingers behind his back. T’Challa had indeed been able to issue Steve with papers - Wakandan ones. In theory, of course, Steve had US citizenship. Claiming that - without revealing who he was - was something that Tony had immediately discarded as too complicated and likely to draw Ross’s attention. No, flying under the radar was preferable. If Ross tried to interfere, they had a few options open to them, starting with simply putting Steve on a diplomatic plane back to Wakanda, moving to holing up indefinitely in the Wakandan consular space that Shuri nominally headed up, and even having custody transferred to Shuri to extend diplomatic immunity. Hell, if the shit ended up hitting the fan and everything else fell apart, Tony could pull the nuclear option out of his pocket and file for adoption, and Ross could go whistle.

(He wasn’t _quite_ ready for something that drastic, not when there was still a chance of Steve re-aging to adulthood. But it was good to have options, he reasoned. Pep surely knew that as well.)

“OK,” Pepper sighed, as if all the fight had gone out of her. “I’ll arrange it. Send me a list of anything you’ve decided on, and I’ll figure the rest out.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Tony said with real feeling in his voice. “I owe you one.”

“You owe me considerably more than one,” she said, but she was smiling.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries - Happy had a quick update for him on Peter’s latest escapades, which seemed to include honest-to-god rescuing a cat stuck up a tree - and he rung off, feeling considerably happier and more prepared. Pepper would figure things out. So what if he was planning to turn up on her metaphorical doorstep with a seven year old tomorrow? _Probably not the worst thing I’ve dropped in her lap,_ Tony thought, chagrined, thinking back to some of his less than sterling past decisions and the fall-out that Pepper had managed on his - and S.I.’s - behalf. _She looks a little less murderous this time, so… progress?_ He’d take his wins where he could get them.

He checked the clock. It was gone seven; Steve would need feeding before long. He stuck his head around the bedroom door. “Hey kiddo, how’s that packing going? You all ready?”

Steve looked up from where he was carefully smoothing down his drawings on top of his neatly stacked dozen or so books and clambered to his feet. He presented himself to Tony - clad in clean and mostly rumple-free clothes, sockless feet jammed into his Iron Man sneakers. “I’m all ready!” He declared, pointing to the small box of toys and the pile of books with clear accomplishment on his face. “When are we going?”

Tony looked around the room and suppressed a smile. _Well, he managed the toys. I can do the rest - and we can always re-buy whatever I forget._ He made a mental note to make sure Steve put on socks before they left, though. The kid had had enough sniffles and upper respiratory infections to last a lifetime. _Come to think of it, I should make sure we have enough of his meds to last us for a couple of weeks at least. No use in borrowing trouble._ “Lunchtime. We’re going to chase the sun all the way out to California. How’s that sound?” He laughed at the way Steve’s eyes widened and pointed at the little table in the living room corner where he’d placed the breakfast tray delivered earlier. “Go on, time for food first, and then we’ll go say our goodbyes.” He thought for a moment. He really wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. _I’m not so much bailing out in the middle of a threat, as bailing and taking their one lead with me._ He was under no illusions about the level of contact that T’Challa expected the research lab to maintain, or that he was essentially removing the one real block - himself - to Mordo putting access to Steve back on the table.

And... well, it might be a bit of a crutch, but he needed to do something before he was ready to face it. “I’m going to make another call, I’ll be right back. Do _not_ add jam on anything until I get back.”

He left Steve nibbling the edges of one of the crispy little pancakes that had become his go-to food for pretty much every meal (whilst eyeing the jam that was worryingly within reach and also guaranteed to drip everywhere) and quietly went back to the bedroom, closing the door behind him and reaching for the ever-present pebble. Pep would get things going, he was sure, but there was one more call he needed to make.

“Hey, Tony. Everything OK?” Rhodey squinted at him from the screen, rumpled and still half-asleep. There was a movement next to him on the bed, the bedlinen lifting as someone turned over and tugged the sheet closer to them. Rhodey made a soothing sound before angling the screen away so the other body wasn’t in view. “Gimme a sec.”

A couple of minutes later Rhodey reconnected the call, the background indicating the living room rather than the bedroom. “Sorry, didn’t want to wake Sam.”

“Sure. He’s having a lie-in, huh?” He’d been aiming for some vague note of innuendo, mostly by reflex, but judging by Rhodey’s expression he’d fallen somewhat short. “I mean -”

Rhodey took pity on him. “Yeah, he’s been pretty wiped out, so he’s sleeping now. ”

“And the surgery?” He’d had the updates, of course, and Rhodey was quite clearly out of hospital and back in a normal bed, but that wasn’t quite the same thing as hearing it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. He studied Rhodey carefully. There were signs of fatigue, of course, which was to be expected. And he’d lost weight he couldn’t really afford to lose. But he was only a few days out of major surgery, and he was quite clearly moving about at least as easily as he had been when Tony had seen him last. But, of course, that didn’t mean that the surgery had achieved all it had been intended to. “How’s… everything?”

A corner of Rhodey’s mouth twitched. “I’m tempted to make you say it, asshole.”

“Oh, _come on._ Fine. How’s your dick doing, honeybear?”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “My dick is fantastic, thank you. It’ll take time for things to settle down after the surgery, obviously, but there is every indication that it was successful and with a bit of work, I’ll have full function back in that area.”

He blinked. “ _Rhodey._ My God, that’s fantastic news.” It was a world away from the cautious optimism he’d been nursing, and what he’d read in the spare updates FRIDAY provided. “They’re sure? Full function?”

Rhodey couldn’t meet his eyes. “Yeah. There was a, uh,” he coughed, “proof positive, so to speak. Obviously I’m not supposed to do anything for a bit, but, uh...”

All of a sudden, he got it, what had Rhodey so happy. His knees suddenly felt weak with relief. “Rhodey. Thank God. _Thank God._ ” He couldn’t think of what else to say, how to express his happiness and relief for his friend. That he could have this part of himself back. That this hadn’t been taken away from him as well.

_I didn’t think I’d lose that,_ Rhodey had confessed to him, sleep-slurred, back when he’d still been in hospital. They’d given him the run-down, and they’d still been holding out hope that a lot of things would go away as the spinal shock faded. But _this_ thing, this thing that had been taken away from Rhodey - this thing he hadn’t mentioned to Tony previously, had probably never intended to confess - this was not something that Tony had known about. _I know I should have been,_ Rhodey had gone on in that same soft voice, as if confessing a crime. _It could have happened during any number of deployments, right? And I’ve thought about everything else. What I could live with, how I’d adapt, what I’d do. I know people who have gone through that, so… And I thought, well, I think I’m prepared._ He’d laughed at that, short and sharp, the sound turning into a sob. _I thought,_ I’m prepared, _sweet Jesus. I can’t fucking_ walk _and it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t fucking matter, because I can’t use my dick either, and what kinda person does that make me if_ that’s _what’s keeping me up at night, huh?_

_A guy,_ Tony had said, because it had been the only thing _to_ say. And because, because - _Rhodey. You know it doesn’t define you, right? It’s just -_

_Tony._ Rhodey had covered his face with his hands. _Shut up._

And Tony had shut up. Because it wasn’t _him_ , because he wasn’t the one dealing with this. Because all the literature said that everyone was different, that clinical depression was a possibility, that the cocktail of negative feelings would take months to work through as people settled into their new normality. Because it had taken Rhodey weeks to tell him this, in confidence, and he didn’t want to betray that trust by getting this wrong.

(Because he didn’t know what he’d do if it had happened to him, with no hope of recovery, no magic blue pills or heart surgery to get everything back on track.)

“I’m so glad, Rhodey. Seriously. I’m so fucking happy for you.”

Rhodey laughed. “Bet you never thought you’d be saying that about another guy’s dick.”

“Honeybear, if you’d been paying attention during my wild teenage years, you’d _know_ that’s not true.”

Rhodey rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the reminder, I forgot I was in such illustrious company.”

God, Tony had missed him. “Rhodey,” he exhaled, almost a laugh. He fought the urge to drop his face in his hands. He was so _tired._ “Rhodey, Christ. It’s good to talk to you.”

Rhodey looked at him for a long moment. “Tony? What’s this about?”

Tony looked away. “What, I can’t just call my sugar plum and check on his dick?”

“Your sugar plum has far less patience for your bullshit now that they’re weaning me off the good drugs,” Rhodey said matter of factly. “Come on, out with it.”

Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m going back to the US. And I’m taking Steve with me. Keeping him in limbo isn’t fair, he needs stability. T’Challa’s sister - she’s the one who built Barnes that arm - has a lab out there, in Oakland. I’m gonna take Steve there. I’m… I don’t know what I’m going to do next, but until we figure out how to turn him back, he’s staying with me.” He met Rhodey’s gaze head-on, shoulders squaring as if for a fight. “I’m… I’m keeping him.”

It was the first time he’d said it.

It was everything he’d denied and diminished when he’d been speaking with Pep; everything he’d skirted around when he’d discussed practicalities with T’Challa. It had been the elephant in the room when he’d - eventually - agreed to be accompanied by Barnes and Barton.

_I’m keeping him._

He wasn’t ready to commit permanently, and maybe Steve would just wake up one morning and be back to his old (ha!) self. But until then, in that undefined, difficult to measure middling duration, not quite ‘short term’ and certainly not ‘long term’...

“I’m keeping him,” he said again, his voice steady. “Until he turns back.” _If he turns back._ he thought, but did not let it reach his face.

Rhodey was silent for a long moment. “Just like that, huh,” he said finally. His voice was very soft. “Tony. Sam told me what he’d said to you. I won’t say I’m sorry to have had the surgery or any of that stuff, obviously, but…” he sighed. “I wish I’d been there.”

He tasted something bitter in the back of his throat. “To talk me out of it?”

“I’ve known you since you were a snotty teen who could barely reach my shoulders. I know better. Once you’ve decided something is your responsibility, trying to talk you out of it is a fool’s errand.” Rhodey tipped his head to one side. “But I figure - that’s why you called me, right? You need someone to have your back. And I do, Tones. You know that, right? I’ll always have your back.”

“Even when I’m doing something incredibly stupid?” Tony asked, somewhat desperately.

Rhodey waved a hand, a hint of a smile on his smile. “You’ll be pleased to know that this doesn’t even come close to making my list of Top 5 Incredibly Stupid Things Tony Has Ever Done. I’m not gonna lie, you’ve made smarter choices, but it’s not like this is coming out of left-field. You’ve always been a little soft-headed that way.” He dimpled suddenly. “Hey, does this mean that I’m gonna be an uncle?”

Tony laughed. “Don’t you dare, you know I have a heart condition, you absolute asshole.” He shook his head. “Listen, you know you can always tell me if I’m screwing this up - I really _need_ you to do that, and -”

“Tones, lemme stop you there. There is nothing you can do to stop me from telling you when you’ve screwed up.” Rhodey’s smile grew lopsided. “I’m not gonna lie. I think you’re leaving yourself open for a world of hurt. But you already know that.”

“I do,” Tony confirmed. He shrugged. “But, you know how it is…” All the other choices were somehow _worse,_ and if he could get Pep, Happy and Rhodey to - at least a little - back him on this, no matter how many misgivings they might have...

Something in his tone of voice seemed to make Rhodey frown in concern. He leaned forward, filling the screen. “Hey, I took you in, didn’t I? That worked out OK.”

He’d probably meant it to be reassuring. But suddenly all Tony could think about was Rhodey’s face when he’d found out Tony had lied to him about the palladium poisoning; Rhodey’s face when Tony had OD’d the first, second and third time; Rhodey’s face after he’d fallen and Tony hadn’t saved him, after he’d fallen and it had been _Tony’s_ fault -

(Because if there was one thing that Tony had known he’d always excelled at, it was in hurting people who loved him.)

“Yeah,” he said, and managed a smile. “That worked out just great.” He cleared his throat. “Listen. Not that I don’t appreciate the vote of confidence, but I need a bit of a favour as well. I don’t know how up to speed you are, but we’ve made a temporary alliance with the sword-wielding maniac from before.”

“Yeah, Okoye briefed us.” Rhodey frowned. “That doesn’t strike me as the most reliable of allies.”

“He’s a psychopath,” Tony blurted. “They all are, I think - the one we met in Hong Kong, whoever the fuck is running their New York temple - only this one wears it on his sleeve. And he’s the one bending T’Challa’s ear on what our plan should be. Fuck, Rhodey, he wants access to _Steve._ ”

“T’Challa would never allow that,” Rhodey said, visibly appalled at the suggestion.

“He’s said no for the moment, but he may not have a lot of choice. We haven’t made much headway in tracking down this Umar who’s supposedly the Big Bad, and I doubt Mordo is going to be sitting and cooling his heels if we don’t kick things off again.” He took a deep breath. With him and Barton gone, who did that leave to argue Steve’s corner? “I know it’s a lot to ask, especially as you’re just out of surgery. But I need someone I can trust to be in that room.”

Slowly, Rhodey nodded. “I can’t speak for where Sam falls on this,” he said after a moment, “but for what it’s worth, you know I got your back on this, any way you need me.”

_I know._ He nodded back. “I know. Thanks, Rhodey. And I really am glad you got your dick back.”

“Oh, piss off,” Rhodey laughed, that dimple back again. He made a rude gesture with one hand. “Go look after that kid. I’ll keep things under control here.”

Tony rang off, feeling about a thousand times better, and went to check on Steve.

Back in the living room, Steve had grown tired of waiting for him to come back and had attempted the large jam jar and the unwieldy butter knife by himself.

“Um…” Steve looked up, panicked, from where he was attempting to spoon the spilled jam from the floor back into the jar. “I can put it back in!”

“Well,” Tony said after a moment, surveying the jam-covered child, jam-covered table, and jam-covered rug. “I guess we can squeeze in a bath before we set off.”

And after that, he thought uneasily, he’d have to make nice and say their goodbyes to the others. _What joy._ He sighed, and rolled up his sleeves. “Come on, kiddo, let’s get you cleaned up.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a bit of a long hiatus! Work has been a nightmare with ridiculous hours and a lot of stress, and I've had the builders in, etc etc, you get the idea. Mea culpa for the long delay, and thank you to all those still reading. The longer I left it the harder it was to get back to writing, so I'm just glad to have got the next part out. I'm going to try to get back into a regular schedule of posting as momentum seems easier to maintain that way.
> 
> Not much in the way of story notes this time out. I spent a good month or so going back and forth on who would accompany Tony when he went back to the US. Tony's main allies were deliberately unavailable, and I knew that Barnes would have to be along as keeping Steve safe would require some serious fire-power, but the question of Barton went all around the houses before he finally muscled his way in and said that he was doing it, so that was that. (I'd originally intended Scott to want to go back to SF so he could see his family. But actually having him stay away for that little bit longer makes more sense IMO as this fic is set immediately after Black Panther in terms of timeline.)
> 
> Parts of the call with Rhodey were originally planned for earlier in the fic but I needed to give him a bit more time in recovery. I wanted to give him some tangible gains from the surgery, but we know that canonically that he is still using the braces later on so obviously he couldn't have all the damage repaired. But he should be mostly recovered from surgery - certainly enough to be in the room having opinions, even if he's not well enough to be back in the suit yet - so that adds him and Sam back in the mix. I took my guidance on Rhodey's reactions from a variety of websites re: the mental impact of life-changing events, but would welcome input from anyone better informed, especially if I've managed to get it completely wrong.
> 
> Tony's options re: Steve and the US are fairly numerous actually, but most of them he wouldn't want to use because it would draw Ross's unwanted attention. Better to just keep below the radar for as long as possible.
> 
> Comments really are love.


	25. Chapter 25

The bath took longer than planned. Steve had evidently decided that jam today was better than jam tomorrow (so to speak), and he took full advantage of the opportunity to cover himself, Tony, and the entire bathroom in water. Tony made sure that he didn’t drown (and that he was at least vaguely approaching cleanliness) but otherwise left him to splash about. Packing would probably be easier if he didn’t have the child underfoot, anyway. He made sure that the child safeties were on (and that idea was definitely something he was stealing and reverse-engineering as soon as humanly possible) and left Steve to amuse himself while he checked that he had all of the child’s medication and any other necessities packed. He didn’t have much of his own stuff here, obviously, having arrived in just the suit, but Steve had already been subjected to a number of losses and Tony didn’t want to add to that by accidentally leaving behind a favourite crayon or, well, whatever it was that Steve had become attached to and failed to tell anyone about. (There was bound to be something; that was how kids worked, right?)

He’d originally planned to leave early in the morning, but practicalities had immediately intruded. It was gone noon and they were still nowhere near leaving. _So much for chasing the sun_ , he thought with a sigh. For one thing, travelling with a small child seemed to be more complex than he’d originally envisaged; for another, Barton had left him a snippy note which simply said, _you might want to consider saying goodbye rather than sneaking off like a thief_ , which Tony had decided to take personally. It’s not like he was absconding with Steve, for fuck’s sake; he had both legal and moral authority here.

“I’m hardly kidnapping him,” he’d snapped at Barton when he’d wandered in to check on their progress.

Barton had blinked at him, hand half-raised to take a bite out of one of the apples he’d filched from the fruit bowl. “What?”

“Steve. I’m not stealing him.” He’d waved the tablet - Barton’s note still on his notification screen - accusingly.

Barton’s expression had settled into something carefully bland. “I was, uh, actually referring to you leaving without saying your goodbyes. Unless you think that’s gonna put you in Nat’s good books?”

It really wasn’t, Tony had realised with a sinking feeling. He’d shooed Barton out - shoving the entire fruit bowl at him in his haste to get him out of the door - and gone back to packing.

So now he had to get the packing finished, Steve out of the water before he turned into a prune, and…

 _I have to go tell the others that we’re leaving_ . He wasn’t sure why that hit him so solidly. Hadn’t the others wandered across half of West Africa? Weren’t Rhodey, Sam and Vision on the other side of the country? Wasn’t… He sighed, Steve’s half-folded pajama top in his hands. He shoved it into the case and sat down on the bed. _Who the hell am I kidding here._ He was taking Steve and leaving for the States. There wasn’t a much more final way to say ‘bye’ other than, well, what they’d already done to each other. OK, sure, they technically had a world to save - what was new - but, other than Steve turning back, what exactly would be the short-to-medium plan? He’d asked Pepper to set up a few things for him, and T’Challa had given Shuri a heads-up that he was headed her way, but his involvement with the team was changing - _had_ changed - the moment he’d found Steve in that bunker, half-frozen and terrified.

 _At least there is a team to be involved in_ . He found that thought oddly cheering. Sure, he might not be a part of it any longer (and certainly not if Steve stayed a child), but at least the others seemed to be getting on OK. _Maybe all they needed was for me and Steve to not be around. Maybe we were the problem all along_ . He sighed. Sam would likely agree with that assessment. He knew Wanda would. And hadn’t everyone else evidently managed to stay in touch and work around their sundering _just fine_ , as if Siberia was just an embarrassing domestic that everyone knew to carefully ignore?

Well, that issue was being resolved, one way or the other. This particular apocalypse clearly didn’t need him in the field (at least until they figured out where said field was), and he was no good to anyone moping about in a cave in Wakanda. That way madness lay. No, going back to the States was the right move, he was sure of it. He had a lot more in the way of options there, not to mention resources, allies and commitments.

Of course, there were also additional home-grown risks he’d have to consider.

He stood and stretched, groaning a little as his spine popped.

“FRIDAY. We’re going to be heading back to the US in a little bit. I need you to do some digging for me in the meantime.” The suit was already in the jet, and FRIDAY would be able to speak to her main presence through it. With any luck, she’d have most of this sorted out for him before they even lifted off. Tony had already alluded to some of this with Pepper, and between her precautions and T’Challa’s influence, he hoped that this would be enough to stall anything Ross might throw his way if he ever got wind of there being something odd about Steve. But he didn’t want Wakanda to be his only option if things went wrong. T’Challa had created the paper record for Steve, and if T’Challa changed his mind for any reason… He looked back at the closed bathroom door. “I want a third country option if things don’t work out back home. And - some thoughts on how to make sure any fall-out doesn’t hit Stark Industries if Ross decides to go nuclear.” He sincerely hoped it would never come to that, but it never hurt to be prepared.

“Yes, Boss.”

He’d need to think on the options a little more, of course. The charges against the team were varied and numerous, and they covered several jurisdictions. Ross was only one problem, albeit a significant one. The ideal solution was of course for Ross to not know about Steve at all, which would be easiest if they stayed on SI land. Pepper had confirmed that they’d be set up in the Palo Alto area - SI held significant land there, covering both industrial and residential areas - which would mean they could get to Oakland easily enough when they needed to. Plus, it would be a decent cover; what could be more natural than Tony spending time in the office?

Cast-iron contracts, viciously enforced NDAs and a generous pension package which would become forfeit in the face of any unwise disclosures meant that SI people didn’t talk to reporters as a general rule. If Tony turned up with a kid in tow there might be some internal gossip, but there was a much higher chance of keeping Steve’s existence a secret. Pepper would probably ensure that the seeds of Tony’s ‘distant nephew’, ‘science fair winner’, or possibly even ‘secret love child’ had been thoroughly sown before they’d even landed. If anything did leak, it would be merely embarrassing, rather than dangerous - he hoped.

Of course, the Palo Alto campus also included the West Coast R&D labs, which was another draw. It was a solidly equipped and fully-shielded facility; that would be helpful, especially if there was something external triggering Steve’s connection to the portals. For all that Tony wanted to connect with Shuri and Jane Foster on this, that didn’t mean that he was going to just sit around and wait for them to come up with a solution for him. Steve was his responsibility; if the connection to the older Steve was a threat to him, it was on him to figure out how to fix that. (Especially as the focus of the Oakland group was likely to still be on turning Steve back, to the exclusion of everything else.)

 _I could really do with some back-up on this._ Barnes didn’t really count - Tony trusted him about as far as he could throw the quinjet - and Barton was… well, things were still complicated with Barton. He wished that Rhodey could be there, or Pepper. He wished that he had someone he could discuss this with who wouldn’t have a personal stake in the answer falling one way or the other. _And while I’m at it, why not ask for a pony or a unicorn._ They were just as likely to materialise.

He sighed. Who he wanted - he realised with a sudden jolt - was _Rogers_ . Someone he could sit down with; someone he could count on to give him good, solid advice; someone who… _someone who lied to me for two years, and isn’t here anymore_ . _If wishes were horses, I would have ridden out of Siberia on that fucking unicorn._ His relationship with Rogers had clearly had a lot more weight in Tony’s mind than it had in Rogers’s, and Tony would do well to remember it. It was pointless to wish after something that had clearly never existed outside of Tony’s imagination. He was just missing Rhodey, that was all. He was missing Rhodey, and projecting that - and every recent clusterfuck that had landed on his head - onto a man who had, at best, tolerated him for the sake of a long con.

Wanda might want to wax rhapsodic at him about how Siberia had affected Rogers - and Natasha might want him to listen to Rogers narrate it back to him in the world’s most fucked-up audiobook - but that didn’t mean he had to let himself fall for it. Especially not in the privacy of his own mind.

 _Sure. OK. And for my next trick…_ He fought off the flare of irritation that surged through him. He couldn’t figure out what was making him so angry. Moving the kid to the US was the right thing to do. Moving himself away from Natasha, and Wanda, and everyone else who had so many opinions on what he needed to do and how he needed to feel was probably vital for his continued sanity. (Barnes and Barton notwithstanding, and it would be different when they were on Tony’s home turf.) And not letting this latest crisis distract him from preparing for the greater threats that still waited and lingered and built in the shadows was doubtless one of the more sensible things he’d ever done.

He wasn’t _giving up_ on Rogers. He wasn’t trading him, abandoning him, or turning his back. He was just…

He didn’t even know what to call it. Re-prioritising? Conflicted? Needing a bit of space so his head stopped feeling like it was going to explode?

There was a neat pile of Steve’s books left on one side, the child’s crayons packed back into their box. He added the box to the case, and slid the books in after it in a heap. One of the books - the Arthurian mythology book - had a piece of Steve’s artwork stuck between the pages. The paper, even folded, was a bit too big to sit comfortably in between the pages, but clearly this piece was important enough to Steve to try to protect it during transit. “Steve, you OK in there?” He called out absentmindedly, unfolding the drawing and smoothing out the wrinkles. _Maybe I should check on h-_

He froze, staring down at the drawing.

It was a fairly ambitious piece of artwork for a seven-year-old, no matter how artistically inclined. Steve had clearly attempted to add some perspective to the drawing, because the flowers on the ground were meticulously drawn in miniature, and the curved branches of the baobab tree from the Birnin Zana palace gardens framed the scene. In the middle of it all, carefully drawn in Steve’s childish hand, was a stylised Iron Man holding the hand of a blonde-haired boy who optimistically came up to about his shoulders. On Steve’s other side was a woman with long blonde hair. She was wearing an apron.

There was no doubt at all in Tony’s mind who the blonde woman was.

He sat down heavily on the bed, his legs giving out beneath him.

“I’m OK!” Steve called back, followed by more splashing.

 _I’m keeping him_ , he’d told Rhodey. As if _he_ had been the one to make the decision.

As if he’d ever been able to talk Steve - any version of him - into anything.

His hands were trembling. He touched the carefully-drawn blonde hair of the woman, his fingers tracing the waxy crayon marks. He didn’t know when Steve had drawn it. Was it a new drawing? Something he’d done to help process the shock of having to stay in the present? Maybe it wasn’t as rosy as it appeared and Tony’s focus should be on the presence of Sarah Rogers, rather than the Iron Man holding Steve’s hand firmly. Or maybe Steve had drawn this back in Birnin Zana.

Maybe it was just another drawing in a folder of them, and the rest were all of Steve and his mother. Maybe he had a dozen drawings of the kid version of Barnes, and another dozen of Barnes saving him from Mordo. Maybe he...

 _He’d kept it_. Whenever he had drawn it, for whatever purpose, the drawing clearly mattered to him. He’d kept it in between the pages of his favourite book. And, for whatever reason, he hadn’t shown it to Tony.

Tony took a slow breath and carefully re-folded the picture, slipping it back between the pages of the book. The edges stuck out, frayed and fragile. He touched one worn corner and stood still for a moment, feeling something warm and undefinable spread through him.

*

“I think you are making a mistake,” Wanda said quietly.

It came out sad, somehow; as if she’d been hoping for something that now remained out of reach. Tony felt an odd pang of regret at that. He quashed it, straightening his back, feeling absurdly under attack. The warm glow from earlier hadn’t entirely faded, and he’d have liked it to continue just a little longer, thank you very much. _This is one of the things I don’t need._ He felt irrationally angry; he didn’t need anyone’s opinion, and certainly not their approval! Especially not with all the history between them. He bit his tongue and seethed quietly, not making eye contact. At least, he thought morosely, it would be a _quick_ farewell.

For all of Barton’s carping on the subject, the obligatory ‘goodbye’ gathering was actually fairly small. Sam and Rhodey were still in Birnin Zana, due to return back with Vision in the next few hours (once Tony and Steve were safely out of range). Barnes and Barton were of course accompanying them to the US and were already in the plane, double-checking they were ready for lift-off. Okoye was the only Wakandan present; T’Challa and M’Baku presumably busy doing whatever it was the Wakandan aristocracy did in the middle of the day. _Croquet, probably._ Tony had already sent his thanks to them both for their hospitality, and to T’Challa for a bit more than that. Mordo was presumably in the Jabari equivalent of a time-out.

All of that meant that only Natasha and Wanda were left of the team (with Scott Lang looking somewhat awkward off to the side); a strange group by anyone’s standards, and certainly not one made up of Tony’s biggest fans. He had in fact briefly considered dismissing this leave-taking as just another mission-related departure - no different from Lang and Vision’s earlier jaunt across half of ECOWAS - but he doubted that Natasha would let him get away with a move like that. And Barton would likely never let him hear the end of it. No, best to man up and take it on the chin.

He shook his head, feeling exhausted. “Wanda…”

“We could make more progress here on fixing things, if we were to try to work with Steve directly.” She hesitated. “If - if it’s because of me -”

“It’s not,” Tony cut her off. He didn’t know what she had been about to say, and he didn’t want to have this conversation again, or to second-guess himself. He’d agreed - in principle - to let Wanda near Steve. In theory. _Hypothetically._ As part of a thought exercise what felt like a million years ago, maybe, or however he was going to justify to himself wanting to both show willing and not to actually follow through. It was, he thought to himself, the team equivalent of a social nicety.

But his own aborted attempts to make peace with Wanda Maximoff were neither here nor there where Steve’s best interests were concerned. Especially not when he had other options he could explore. He sighed. “Look. I’m not going to rehash a discussion that’s already settled. It’s not because of you, it’s -” He stuttered to a stop, unsure of how to articulate his feelings. There was a lot in there, and most of it wasn’t stuff he was willing to share. Things about whether Rogers might actually _want_ to be brought back, or whether he’d also welcome the chance to to live his life over. About whether Rogers’s - Steve’s - feelings on this mattered one way or the other, when the child was here and alive and every bit a person with rights as the adult version had been. And didn’t they owe the child Steve as much of a say in his own life as they would have offered to the adult?

Tony thought uneasily to the book placed carefully in amidst the child’s other belongings, and to what the drawing might mean.

They had a world to save - yes, he understood that, he accepted the responsibility for his part in it.

But he couldn’t accept what ‘fixing it’ could mean for Steve. Not for _Steve_.

“I -” Tony looked back down at where the child was cuddled against his side. He’d refused to sit in a separate chair and so Tony had simply made room for him in his own, sitting tilted to one side slightly so that Steve could squeeze in against him. _Maybe it wasn’t such a hot idea to bring him with me for this_. He’d thought that he could simply say his goodbyes and be on his way; he hadn’t counted on Maximoff’s earnest attempt to be conciliatory and meet him halfway. Maybe this all had something to do with Natasha, who was sat on Wanda’s left side, not having said a word since he’d announced his intentions to leave in - he checked his watch discreetly - fifteen minutes from now. He sighed.

On the other side of the room, Lang spoke up. “I don’t think you’re gonna win this one.” His eyes were on Tony, but he seemed to be addressing Wanda. “You’re - look, I get it. You’re getting your kid to safety, right?” He nodded at where Steve was staring warily back.

This was so completely 180 to what Tony had thought they were discussing that all Tony could do was blink at him, stunned.

Lang didn’t wait for an answer, addressing Steve directly. “Steve? Kiddo, do you want to go with Dr Stark?”

Steve hesitated, looking quickly up at Tony, then back to Lang. “Yes,” he said in a small voice. His grip on Tony tightened, as if he was afraid that might be the wrong answer.

Lang shrugged, as if this settled things. “Well, then. Look, I get that this makes things a little bit more complicated for us. But…” he shrugged again, leaning back. “It’s not really our call, at this point.”

 _Well, then._ Tony stared back at Lang, nonplussed. Wanda had a similarly confused expression on her face; Natasha looked carefully blank. _Why would Lang..._ But, wait. He suddenly remembered how profoundly Lang had been rattled by the images of the killed children, all those long weeks ago in Birnin Zana; how Lang had almost looked green with the effort to keep his face still. _I keep forgetting he’s got a kid._ “Thanks,” he managed after a moment. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, it’s all been squared away with T’Challa, so if anyone has a problem… take it up with him, I guess.” He looked back down at Steve, and _not_ at where Natasha had been drilling a hole in his head with her level gaze for the last five minutes. On his other side, Okoye shifted minutely. “So, if that’s everything -”

“I think you’re making a mistake,” Natasha echoed, very quietly. She unfolded her arms. “I understand why you’re doing it. But you’re exposing yourself, and Steve, to a lot of risk. What if Umar decides to track you down?”

“Well, that’s why I’m taking with me the dynamic duo of Messers Barnes and Barton, marksmen extraordinaire,” Tony snapped back. He stopped, then tried for a more conciliatory tone. “Look, we’ve no indication that Umar is even aware of Steve’s existence, let alone that this might be a problem for her. All we have is Mordo’s story, which I still don’t buy a hundred percent. And, besides…” He shrugged again, settling an arm around the child. “I can’t stay out here, you know, _indefinitely_. Places to go, people to see, a fairly large multi-national corporation to run.”

“And if Umar _is_ targeting you?”

“I figure I can protect Steve more effectively when I’m not in a crippled suit.” Tony stared back at her. “Legolas and the murderbot are no lightweights in the carnage department, either. And I also figured you guys might keep an eye on the West Coast. You know, just in case.”

“Just in case,” Nat echoed, her face expressionless.

Tony hated it when she did that. He had a vague inkling that she tended to do it when she felt vulnerable, which would hint at her being genuinely worried about him. That said, he had no illusions about her own awareness of her tells. It could be a double-bluff. “Anyway. We’ll stay in touch, obviously, but - look, guys, and I can’t believe I’m echoing Lang here, but this isn’t a discussion. Steve and I are heading out in ten - no, eight - minutes, so…” He spread his hands. “This was more by way of a ‘can’t stay for dinner’ message.”

“The Oakland centre will provide additional security to ensure Dr Stark’s safety,” Okoye said, serene as a monk. “ _And_ the child’s.” She locked gazes with Natasha.

This was news to Tony, who opened his mouth to point out that someone else’s army had no fucking business rocking up on _his_ lawn, goddammit, however well-intentioned. He closed it again. _Well, if I don’t want them there, I can just tell security not to issue them passes_ . They could guard the Stark Industries industrial park from _outside_ the security perimeter.

After a long moment, Natasha seemed to relax infinitesimally. “All right. I understand.” She stood up as Tony did, and waited for him to offer his hand. “Good luck, Tony,” she said, her tone even, clasping both her hands around his, squeezing gently. “I will stay in touch.” She hesitated, then quickly reached up and pressed a kiss to his cheek as he stared at her, startled. She stepped back, reddening slightly, then tipped a small smile down at Steve, and bent to embrace him as well. “And you, Steve. Stay well.”

Lang offered him a hand to shake, then patted Steve on the shoulder.

Wanda…

“Stay safe,” she said. She seemed to be debating something internally, then suddenly stepped forward and embraced him. She let go of Tony - who had been too startled to move - then knelt down and wrapped her arms around Steve briefly. “You too,” she murmured, and kissed his forehead.

A little startled - this child version hadn’t really spent any time with her - Steve shied away and hid against Tony’s leg.

Tony cleared his throat and turned to Okoye.

“I’m not hugging you,” she said before he could get a word out.

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been such a long time since the last update! Many thanks to all those still sticking with this fic. I had to take a break from writing for RL reasons, but I'm back into the swing of it now, and updates should follow in a more regular fashion. I'd like to finish this fic before Endgame comes out, if at all possible.
> 
> Many thanks to phnelt for doing the heavy lifting in researching likely Californian locations for me, and in helping me think through the next few sections of the fic. Palo Alto seems to be one of the likely places Stark Industries would have a presence, and sticking to a closed community would be one way to keep Steve's presence a secret... at least, in theory. 
> 
> Comments are always welcomed and treasured.


	26. Chapter 26

“So, how did the grand farewell go?” Barton asked with a raised eyebrow at Tony’s disgruntled expression. He leaned against the wall, arms folded.

Tony grimaced.  “I’m fairly certain everyone in that room put a tracker or two on me,” he muttered, discomfited. He had been busy buckling Steve into the child-friendly harness when Barton had wandered back from the cockpit to check - again - on his progress. By this point, Tony was starting to feel some sympathy for all those times Jarvis had had to coral his child self anywhere by a specific time. He stood, half-turning to Barton.

“You should probably think of it as a retirement party,” Barton said, grinning. “They’re just jealous you’re heading off to have babies in the suburbs while the rest of us do the real work.” He shrugged again, then turned and went back to the cockpit and the pilot’s seat.

Tony was once again forcibly reminded that Barton had tried his own variant of that, and look how that had worked out.

“Anyway, I don’t see why they’d bother putting trackers on you. It would have been much easier to bug the quinjet instead,” Barton threw over his shoulder.

“Oh, now.” Tony’s brow furrowed. “Not that I don’t appreciate the paranoid stalking, and we all know I’m in no position to cast stones. But, still.” He frowned. “I’m gonna have to do something about that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” He thought. “Maybe flea-dip for aircraft?”

Barnes walked past them, carrying what looked like the world’s largest machine gun. _How many guns does he need?_ Tony wondered.

“All the individual words make sense, and yet,” Barnes muttered, and sat down in the co-pilot seat.

The journey itself was blessedly uneventful, albeit excruciatingly long-winded. Even with the quinjet it took the better part of 18 hours. Barton and Barnes took turns piloting - Tony pitched in with a 3 hour stint when even Barnes was starting to look a little rough around the edges - and Steve dropped off somewhere over West Africa and stayed that way for pretty much the rest of the flight.

They finally landed a little after 4pm the following day - although it was very much 6am where Tony’s sleep-deprived body was concerned - at the private airfield Tony customarily used for his red-eye commute.

“How’s it looking?” He asked Barton, yawning and inching into the cockpit to peer out of the window. Barnes was already awake and getting himself ready in the back compartment.

Barton shrugged. “Seems fine. We weren’t shot out of the sky by the Air Force, so we’re probably OK.”

“Oh, good. As long as you’re using incremental measures for your KPI, and nothing binary like, say, death.”

“Coulda woulda shoulda,” Barton muttered, and elbowed Tony out of the way. “Go back and sit with Steve until we’re ready to disembark. Barnes and I have to go put our faces on.”

Well, far be it for Tony to get in the way of a good makeover montage. “Always remember that you can either wear statement lips or dramatic eyes, but not both,” Tony advised on the way out, then went to collapse back in the seat beside Steve’s. The kid was still asleep, which wasn’t surprising given all the activity of the day, the time difference, plus the albuterol dose he’d needed mid-way through the flight. He mumbled under his breath as Tony retook his seat and wriggled so that he was half-draped on Tony’s arm and drooling on his shoulder. Tony smoothed his hair back from his face and leaned back in his seat, waiting for Barnes and Barton to turn into strangers and let them know it was safe to disembark. _I’ve spent more time waiting in the last few weeks than I have for the last few years_ , he thought wryly. _Nothing like being shown your place in the pecking order_.

He hesitated, then went to check on the suit quickly. It had locked in to the facility coordinates, and FRIDAY would make sure to get it back safely despite all the various knocks it had taken. Still, it didn’t hurt to check. (Knowing his luck, the repulsors would cut out when the suit was over a hotel or tourist group.) “FRIDAY, keep an eye on it, would you please, I don’t want a front page with _Stark suit brains tourist_ to greet me when I arrive.”

“Yes, boss. Ms Potts called a little while ago and left a message. Your escort has the rest of your briefing and arranged the cover stories for Agent Barton and Mr Barnes. She also reminded you that the cleaning staff and security staff in the facility have all be vetted and that you’re not to frighten them off.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Anything else?”

“Her Royal Highness Princess Shuri relayed her compliments, and has issued an invitation for you and your ward to join her at your earliest convenience.”

Huh. “Send her a holding note, FRI, polite but - well, you know the drill. Jet lag, cranky child, will contact her when possible, et cetera.” Shuri wasn’t waiting around, evidently. But Tony wasn’t taking Steve anywhere other than the Stark Industries facility right now; after they’d all had a chance to adjust to EST and get some decent sleep, _then_ he’d call her.

FRIDAY seemed to hesitate. “Her Royal Highness did say that it was important she meet with you as soon as possible. At the Oakland Centre.”

“I’ll just bet. Stall her, FRI. I’m not dancing to anyone’s tune until I’m good and ready.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Good girl.” Satisfied with the suit’s instructions and general readiness, he headed back to his seat.

A few minutes later, Barnes wandered back in. He’d changed into a black suit and white shirt, with plain black gloves and dark glasses on a nondescript face. There was a wire in his ear, and his hair was gelled back neatly.

Tony stared up at him, nonplussed. He’d expected a change, but… “Didn’t I hire you a while back?”

“Security detail, fifteen years ago.” Even his voice sounded different. He flexed his shoulders and adopted the carefully blank expression of the security professional. “The cover story pack was comprehensive.”

“I’ll bet.” He shook his head. It was uncanny. Barnes looked exactly like - but that made sense. No one memorable, no one who was known to be an employee of Stark Industries, but if there was a question raised around the identity of Tony’s new bodyguard, doubtless all any digging would turn up was that an ex-bodyguard had been re-hired. Tony would bet his eye-teeth that his employment would be backdated to before Tony ever left US soil. _Pepper does good work_ , he thought, then frowned. Had it been Pepper? It was a bit _too_ neat. She’d doubtless signed off on it, but… Who had she sent as his escort?

“OK, we’re ready,” the stranger who had to be Barton - and wearing the same suit / wire combo, sans gloves - said. He had a Stark Industries pass clipped to his belt. “The car’s signalled us. Is there anything that isn’t safe to leave to your staff to transport?”

“No. The suit’s locked in on the Palo Alto facility landing bay and can meet us there, and I have Steve’s meds in my bag.” He unbuckled Steve carefully and slid him into his arms. The boy stirred fretfully and then slumped back into sleep on Tony’s shoulder. Barton picked up Tony’s bag and fell into step beside him, Barnes bringing up the rear. “OK, let’s do this.” Behind them, the suit powered on, ready for flight.

*

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to find Maria Hill waiting for him in the limo. Something about the arrangements had been niggling at him ever since they landed. Pepper wouldn’t have handed over the design of the cover story to just _anyone_ , and everything else was just a little too slick to have been handled by civilians. The identities for Barton and Barnes were of actual people who’d worked for him previously; well, Barnes was, and he’d bet that Barton was also wearing the face of someone who had been on the Stark Industries payroll in the past. The airport was fine - Pepper would likely have gone for the same one - but the two cars flanking the limo were definitely over-kill. Tony hadn’t allowed that level of security since he’d first come home from Afghanistan, and maybe not even then. Pepper would have known that. Hill… Hill wouldn’t have cared.

Dammit, he hadn’t expected to miss _Hill_ , of all people. The woman couldn’t stand him.

He slid into the seat opposite her, pasted on his best smile and went straight in for the kill. “Oh, hello. I thought you’d quit. Gone back to shadier pastures. Or does SHIELD’s dental still suck? I thought you guys were all-new, cleans-whiter these days.” Steve was a warm and heavy weight in his arms and as Barton handed him over Tony settled him carefully into his lap. Not that he didn’t trust Hill, of course. But it was always helpful to have his hands free around Fury’s people.

And she was still - now and always - one of Fury’s people. Tony had zero doubts about that. The secretive bastard could be ten years dead and she’d still be dancing to his tune. Well, that went for any number of them, he supposed; Fury’s biggest talent had been in manipulating people into thinking they were doing what they wanted to do. Meanwhile, the end result would still somehow end up with him on top. Even after concerted assassination attempts and having his own damn agency riddled with Hydra agents, the man had somehow ended up unscathed.

Tony still hadn’t entirely ruled out the entire fucking Accords/Barnes thing not being an intricate plot-within-a-plot of Fury’s design.

Not that he was paranoid. (Much.)

Hill smiled back at him, unfazed. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was genuinely pleased to see him.  “Hello, Tony. Pepper made a persuasive argument on why my presence would be required. Congratulations on your new arrival.” Her gaze lighted briefly on the child asleep in Tony’s arms and then slid away, as if she didn’t want to look at him too closely. “I imagine it was a bit of a surprise.”

“You could say that.” He shrugged. “It turns out my party days weren’t quite as long ago as I thought.” They’d gone for the ‘secret love child’ route - overlaid with about three different conflicting cover stories - which would keep anyone who went digging busy for quite some time. (It was always easier to use a scandal as a cover story, Tony had found; people tended to stop looking once they thought they’d found your deep, dark secret.)

Pepper’s briefing pack had been crystal clear that the ‘secret love child’ story would be enforced from day one, in all conversations that could possibly be overheard. That pretty much meant everywhere except the secure housing set up for them, and vehicles were more vulnerable than most other locations. The driver had put up the limo’s privacy screen, of course, but that meant nothing. Not even Pepper could guarantee that every vehicle, room and public space they went to wouldn’t be riddled with bugs and surveillance equipment, so ‘secret love child’ it was. Tony only hoped that Steve would remain conked out from the journey until he could explain it to him.

The door opened and Barton stuck his head in. “We’re ready to head off. The luggage is in the other cars, and your suit is en route. If we’re lucky, it’ll distract anyone trying to tail us.” He pulled back and waved a hand at the open door. Barnes entered - having somehow either disposed of or hidden the worst of his weaponry - and Barton followed, closing the door behind him.

Hill made space for Barnes to slide in next to her, Barton rounding out the square beside Tony and Steve. She paused for a moment, and then a small smile quirked her lips. “Francis. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah. Good to see you.” They shook hands briefly. Hill raised an eyebrow at Barnes. “And you must be… Tony’s old bodyguard. Ms Potts mentioned you’d rejoined the team. Joe, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Barnes murmured.

Tony turned to squint at Barton over the top of Steve’s head. “Francis? _Really?_ ”

Hill pressed the intercom. “We’re ready.”

The car moved off.

“Seriously. _Francis_?”

Barton’s mouth worked. “It’s a family name,” he said at last. He seemed weirdly defensive, as if it was a real name instead of - oh. _Oh_ . Well, Tony was going to get a _lot_ of mileage out of that one.

“I have your briefing for you. Do you want it now or after you arrive?” Hill sounded very much like she’d prefer option number two. She was looking at Tony front and centre and up, her gaze determinedly a few inches above the top of Steve’s head.

Tony thought about being difficult, but - much as he liked winding up SHIELD in general and Hill in particular -  it really wasn’t a smart move to put his people’s backs up. Hill might be Fury’s woman for the most part, but she was still - at least a little bit - one of Tony’s. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose and grimaced. “I missed the Board meeting, huh?”

Hill relaxed infinitesimally at this. “Pepper will forgive you eventually. The FAC Chair probably won’t, though.”

“He hates everyone,” Tony dismissed this with a wave of his hand. The feeling was very much mutual. He might respect Richard Smith’s business acumen, but the man was Chair of his Finance & Audit Committee (as well as deputy to Tony’s Chairship of the overall Board) and therefore the biggest pain in Tony’s ass since, well, Fury.

“Now, more than ever. Your recent absence has not made you any friends among the other Board members, and especially among the FAC. Pepper has been working overtime to calm him down. Something about a missing derogation on the BARF design?” She spelled it out B-A-R-F, her entire expression indicating that no power on this earth would be able to compel her to just call the fucking thing BARF as God (and Tony) had intended.

 _But…_ Tony frowned. “I don’t see why they’d even - it’s experimental and untested, no-one’s going to hand out a derogation off the back of that.” He’d decided to hold off on the classification of BARF until he’d had a chance to think through the implications of it. If he filed it as a medical device he could probably get the FDA to swing approval - and he’d get a lot more in the way of R &D tax credits - but the obvious avenues for abuse made that tricky. He wasn’t about to nail his colours to the mast until he was 100% certain about what he was putting his reputation behind, and certainly not while he was sleeping four hours a night and compulsively checking that the stupid flip-phone was charged. (One minor miracle coming out of Steve being kiddified was that the phone had pretty much been left to languish in the suit’s secure compartment. No need to reassure himself that Steve wasn’t in danger when he had him sprawled out in deep sleep next to him in the car. Well, ‘him’ for a given definition of ‘Steve’, of course, but Tony wasn’t going to argue with the fever dream that had become his life at this particular point.)

That all being said, although Tony had kept up with his emails - barely - when out in Wakanda, handling the Chair of the FAC was not something that could be done remotely. Especially not when he was overstepping his bounds and meddling in things that were very clearly not his bailiwick. “Smith needs to back off out of Pepper’s - and my - remit. It’s not any of his business how we implement operational decisions.” He’d need to have a short, sharp conversation with him about that.

“It is if it’s eating up the first quarter’s R&D budget. Without the derogation, the tax exemptions aren’t applicable and he’s worried about the shareholders. With that, the fallout from the Accords, and the dissolution of the Avengers Initiative...” She shrugged. “There’s paperwork you need to look at for the Avengers subsidiary, by the way. Some of the lawsuits look pretty solid and we’re likely going to have to settle.”

Ah, of course. In the end, didn’t everything boil down to money? The Avengers subsidiary had been pretty effectively ring-fenced - and had been in the process of splitting off from the main SI parent company - when the whole Accords fiasco had blown up at them. Either way, SI would have an impenetrable liability shield, but that didn’t mean that the sub wasn’t vulnerable. As things currently stood, the Avengers didn’t exist in a legal sense as anything other than private security (and they certainly didn’t enjoy diplomatic immunity, no matter what anyone might have wished). It meant that the government couldn’t direct them or take charge of them, but it also meant that they weren’t covered by government guarantees or other protections if they were sued. Just like any other company operating in private security and disaster recovery, any screw-ups meant a pay-out.

Pepper had previously floated the idea of having the sub look at not-for-profit status, or possibly registering the whole kit and caboodle overseas as pocket subs scattered in key jurisdictions. That way, it wouldn’t be a case of American private actors rocking up on Mali’s doorstep - for instance - but would be more aligned with how NGOs such as the Red Cross operated. The alternative was to link it to the UN as an independent but quasi-aligned agency; this would have given them diplomatic immunity, access to pretty much everywhere, and would have been a totally awesome idea except for the whole Accords issue dropping into their laps at about the same time.

No wonder the FAC Chair was spitting nails. The sub’s financials may have been at arms-length, but they still produced group accounts for the time being. It didn’t look good however you looked at it. “What does Pepper say?” He could see Barton side-eyeing him and wondered what he was making of the whole conversation.

Hill shrugged. “She told him where he could stick his concern. Politely. She may also have mentioned that no CEO worth her salt would let a NED mess up long-term strategy for the sake of short-term profits. That the liability shield between SI and the sub was practically impenetrable, and only an illiterate idiot would think she’d have signed off on it any other way. And a few other… less polite things.”

God, Tony loved that woman. “Well,” he said brightly, “it sounds like she has everything well in hand.” He was going to have to buy Pepper a thank-you present. Possibly an entire store of Jimmy Choos.

Hill gave him what could only be described as the stink-eye. “Also, Ross called.”

Barton tensed beside him.

 _… Great._ He kept his voice deliberately light. “About anything in particular, or just to make my life more interesting?”

She raised an eyebrow. “He knows you’re back in the country. He thinks it’s about time you stopped dodging his calls.”

Tony blinked at that. “OK, point one, I wasn’t aware that I had been - that was you?” She nodded. “Well, fine, proactivity is always a plus. But more importantly, how the hell does he know I’m back in the country? I landed like five seconds ago!”

“Oh,” Hill said, her lip curling in what might have been mistaken for a smile if Tony didn’t know enough to be fucking terrified. “I told him.”

“You -”

“Mr Stark is of course happy to cooperate with any initiative authorised by the UN Accords Committee,” Hill said in a perfectly blank corporate register. “He’ll be delighted to discuss what form that authorisation might take during this transition period at a time convenient to the Secretary. However, the Secretary must be aware that Mr Stark is currently out of the country on personal business and unfortunately that personal business will likely keep him occupied for the foreseeable future upon his return. Mr Stark reminds the Secretary that the Avengers Initiative is temporarily on hold until such time as the legal questions raised by the Secretary’s timely intervention have been addressed and, moreover, there is no major threat currently identified which would warrant overriding of such suspension.” She leaned back in her seat, folding her arms. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Tony. And Ross isn’t the first jackass I’ve had to stonewall. If he pushes, we’ll shove the information assets into escrow and cover it with lawsuits from a dozen different shell companies.”

That wasn’t the worst plan Tony had heard. Unless Ross could pass emergency powers he wouldn’t be able to yank anything out of escrow, and if Hill - and more importantly, _Pepper_ \- had oversight over the companies supposedly suing them, then they could drop the lawsuit whenever the danger was past. It did have the downside of denying SI itself access to the data, but if the Avengers were suspended, there wasn’t much point to it anyway. (And it wasn’t as if Tony didn’t keep off-the-book back-ups.) Tony paused for a moment, then turned to Barton. “Well?”

He was watching Hill with narrowed eyes, seeming to think it over. “Yeah, OK. That’s… OK.” he relaxed slowly.

 _Oh ye of little faith_ , Tony thought with a smile. He caught Hill’s gaze. Of course, there was one thing that Hill wouldn’t mention but which had to be foremost on her mind. Ross could be stalled by polite iciness only as far as he allowed the trappings of legality to hold him. Put one toe out of line and he had a whole host of extra-legal alternatives open to him.

Well, he’d trusted Pepper on this so far and she hadn’t steered him wrong. Smile and offer cooperation, and then stall at every opportunity. The Accords weren’t going anywhere - especially not with 117 countries signed up to them - but a signature wasn’t ratification. And there was many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip, as the saying went. The Accords would hold, at least for the time being. Ross would hold. Even - God help him - Richard Smith would have to hold, probably frothing at the insult.

Tony had bigger priorities to deal with.

“Have you decided on what you want to do about schooling?” Barnes asked finally. He’d sat in silence for Hill’s entire spiel, not even seeming to pay attention but instead gazing out of the window intently. Now, his attention was fixed on the child curled up in Tony’s lap.

“I have some options for you to look at,” Hill murmured, seemingly discomfited by the change of subject.

Tony was irrationally amused by her preference for Ross over Rogers as a conversation topic. “Not yet. I’ll need to get him settled in first.” There were a couple of schools on the premises that would probably work - secure perimeter, all his own people, no one to blink an eye at Barnes-in-disguise accompanying Steve everywhere - but he figured a few days getting settled in was probably helpful.

Steve made a distressed sound and cuddled closer in sleep. Tony’s arms tightened around him. “How much longer?”

“An hour or so.”

“Let’s pause on the shop talk until then, OK? I don’t want to wake the kid. It was a long flight and he hasn’t been sleeping well.”

Hill paused, surprised. “All right,” she said slowly. “We can do that.”

They sat in silence, Barnes watching the outside and Barton’s eyes occasionally glancing between Hill and Tony, his brow furrowed. In Tony’s lap, Steve murmured and shifted in restless sleep, heedless of Tony’s attempts to soothe him.

“He’s just tired,” Tony said, almost apologetically.

Barton was frowning. “You said he’s not sleeping well, but he’s slept a lot. Like - a _lot._ Did you give him anything?”

“No. Well - his albuterol. But nothing to make him sleep. His breathing’s too tight for that. Anyway, this isn’t unusual for him, he sleeps a lot.” Tony had wondered about it a couple of times, but Steve had had so much disruption and trauma in his relatively short time with them that if the kid wanted to hibernated he wasn’t going to argue. There was nothing medically wrong with him - other than his lungs - and the Wakandan doctors had thought him well enough to stay outside the hospital. Tony was admittedly not going to feel settled about it until he had the opinion of his own doctor, Pepper, Rhodey’s mom and possibly a signed note from God, but he wasn’t about to make any of that public. “The doctors said it was normal.”

“Yeah.” Barton was still frowning, chewing on his bottom lip.

Tony debated mentioning the fact that he’d had to explain to Steve what the situation was, but both Hill and Barnes were looking at him with interest at this point so he opted to keep quiet. He’d mention it to Barton later. He’d know what to do with upset kids; hell, he must have had experience explaining these things to Cooper, right?

Besides, seven was the age of reason, wasn’t that how the Catholic thinking went? Huh, there was a thought. Rogers hadn’t been especially religious himself, but he’d been raised Catholic if Tony was remembering correctly. Was that something he needed to think about? Maybe it would be comforting for the child to have that continuity. Tony had never counted himself as a believer in any sense of the term, but he’d dutifully accompanied his mother to church as a child, and less dutifully as a teen. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to pretend for a little bit if it brought Steve some comfort.

He looked out of the window, his fingers carding through Steve’s tousled hair, thinking. Damnit, he’d probably have to talk to Barnes about this. He might have some idea about what Steve had thought as a child.

There were a ridiculous amount of plates in the air. Steve, Umar, the Accords, Ross, the whole fucking team… his head ached abominably, a tell-tale sign that he hadn’t hydrated enough on the flight.

And Rogers. Of course, Rogers. Just because Tony had Steve to look after, that didn’t mean that the question of Rogers went away. That didn’t mean that everything was magically solved. _Resolve me of all ambiguities_ ; it should have been a prayer. Liminality was where the devil waited.

The Stark Industries facility was heralded by retinal scans and voice-prints, which made Tony briefly wide-eyed with panic before he remembered that Pepper would have sorted all of that out for them in advance. In any case, only the adults were required to be passed through; Steve slept through the whole thing. Once inside, they pretty much had the run of the place, although obviously any secure areas such as the residences or the R&D labs had additional security in place.

The house Pepper - or possibly Hill - had picked for them was a fairly luxurious-looking three-storey building, with impeccable security and boring decor. Tony vaguely recalled staying there once or twice when spending longer than a couple of days on site; generally he stayed in Malibu and commuted, but sometimes it was easier to just work through the night and grab a few hours’ sleep in on-site housing.

Barnes frowned up at it. “Too many windows.”

Tony was looking at Hill instead. “You guys go on ahead, I’ll catch up,” he said.

Barton shrugged and took Steve, Barnes at his shoulder. They closed the door on the limo and went up to the house, doubtless to check whether any Hydra assassins - or worse, paparazzi - were hiding in the crockery.

Tony stared at Hill for a long moment, unsmiling. “Hi there.”

“Hi Tony.”

They regarded each other in silence.

He liked Hill, even though she pretty much hated him. He did. And he trusted Pepper’s judgement. But… “You here to babysit me, Agent Hill?”

“I’m on your payroll, Tony,” she said softly. “You know that.”

“Yeah. And our mutual friend’s a great believer in efficiencies, so you’ll forgive me if that’s not enough for trust.” Fury could get blood out of a stone if he had a mind to it, _and_ get the stone to apologies for the inconvenience afterwards. Bastard hadn’t ever met a power move he’d disliked.

“What would be?” She waited a moment, then plunged on. “There’s nothing I can say that will make you trust me on this. Not when it comes to -“ She waved a hand vaguely to where Barton had exited, Steve in his arms.

His mouth quirked. “Pep telling tales? Or are you still in contact with -” with Romanoff, he almost said without thinking, but caught himself in time. “With Rushman?”

The expression on Hill’s face told him all he needed to know. “It can’t be both?”

He grimaced. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. That woman seems to have kept in contact with everyone except me.”

“Because you were so close and friendly before.”

“Yeah, well.” He regarded her with frank curiosity. “You know I won’t let you have him. I don’t care how many hallelujahs Nick can muster up. He’s not gonna lay a finger on him.”

“He knows.” She smiled a little. “And believe it or not, I didn’t need anyone to tell me how you’d react. You’re pretty easy to read when it comes to him.”

“Yeah? That something else Nick neglected to share?” It was there, beneath the surface, the question he couldn’t bring himself to ask. How much had Fury known? He’d painted himself as a friend of Howard’s, SHIELD as Howard’s agency. But if he’d known… if either Fury or - God forbid - _Peggy Carter_ had been involved in the cover-up…

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to,” Hill said softly. She leaned back in her seat, perfectly at ease, in civvies that may as well have been a uniform. _You can take the girl out of SHIELD, but…_ “That’s not what you want to ask me, anyway.”

“Oh? What do I want to ask you?”

She met his gaze, unflinching. “Which way will the dominoes fall if Oakland come up trumps?”

He stared back at her for a long moment. “No, Agent Hill,” he said quietly, venomously, “no, I don’t need to ask that.”

He had no doubt on that score.

“Well,” he said, putting a hand on the door handle, “shall we get this over with?”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not many notes on this one, other than to reference [this excellent post](https://historicallyaccuratesteve.tumblr.com/post/92559081749/protestant-steve-rogers-v-catholic-steve-rogers) talking about Steve's religion. I'd always assumed Steve was Catholic given his background so was surprised to see the 'P' on his dog-tags. I like the compromise of one Protestant, one Catholic parent. Tony's mother was Carbonell, again fandom assumptions tend to be that she was Italian Catholic, whereas Howard wasn't anything in particular (although I've read some compelling arguments for Howard being Jewish). Either way, I don't see Tony as religious. That said, he would give the matter of Steve's education (religious or otherwise) serious thought and it wouldn't be something he'd rush.
> 
> I've written about this [elsewhere](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11512137), but my headcanon for the Avengers Initiative is that it's a subsidiary to Stark Industries (to prevent people from suing SI if Thor's hammer takes out their bakery shop, for instance) which of course would need to become independent if the Accords were coming into play. Either the IFRC or Save the Children federated models would work, or a UN-affiliated agency model, and I think the latter makes more sense if you're not lacking for funding. It would be self-regulating, subject to other UN instruments rather than national enforcement, and the US army wouldn't be able to overrule decisions. That said... the whole Accords storyline is a mess in the MCU so idk how much of this will remain internally consistent. Let's just chalk it up to artistic licence.
> 
> Many thanks to phnelt for both the Palo Alto research and for suggesting Maria Hill as Tony's liaison at the SI west coast facilities. 
> 
> Comments are treasured.


End file.
